Ascent
by Lunalelle
Summary: Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventhyear, but now the tables have turned.
1. Chapter One

**Title:** Ascent (01)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** **Category:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Medicus Voldemort  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Abyss/Ascent originate from **Maid of Many Names**' "Nonpartisan" and "Degree." Here is where the beginning of "Nonpartisan" comes into play. But as usual, I deviate, more so in Ascent than in Abyss.  
**Author notes:** Hello, everyone. Yes, I have started Ascent. Isn't everyone happy? I know I am. My break was wonderful, by the way, and I needed it so badly. But now I'm back in the game. April may cause me to be a little sporadic in my updates, but other than that... Enjoy. 

**Chapter 1**

She woke up before the early beams of sun hit her pillow, but her eyes remained closed for her morning meditation. Not all of the Medicus Order adhered to the older traditions such as meditation, cleansing, and chanting, but when Hermione lived at the abandoned, hidden cathedral with the other waiting healers, she took pride in maintaining the calming schedule that let her purge her mind of all the darker thoughts that descended upon her when she slept. She knew that no amount of meditation would take away her nightmares, but she could control her day time.

It remained. She felt it when she moved the cold washcloth over her lurid Dark Mark at night, when her mind brushed against familiarity or she saw something at the edge of her vision that looked like the sinuous movement of a cloak. But it was dormant, waiting at the end of her reason, waiting for one lapse, for one instance that reminded her of that time. She never let it awaken. It had taken her eight years, but now she was a fully trained Medicus. She had the peace, the mind, the life that she had wanted.

Hermione did not expect this utter peace, not in the midst of a war of which even the Medicus Order was a part. Like some other wizarding entities, they were neutral in the battle, but they still acted as they were meant to do. Nonpartisanship did not mean nonparticipation. Letters still came in to them, letters in the common form and plea for their services from both sides of the fold. They served as best as they could.

They certainly received more publicity than usual - they were called high-priced whores, dirty double-crossers, spies, and traitors. That is, when the Dark forces employed them. The Medicus Order did not hear complaints when the Minister of Magic requested assistance for his nerves or when an aging, retired Auror sent his letter to them. Despite the hypocrisy, the Medicus Order continued in their own way, as they always had.

Hermione's meager clientele thus far consisted of temporary contracts binging her to a young girl who was cursed into blindness, a single mother who needed help coping with the loss of a stillborn infant, and an older man who wanted his dying days to be as comfortable as possible - none of these people wanted to be alone, and Hermione was a good companion for them for their times. She was well chosen by the Oracle, a chalice-like object similar to the Goblet of Fire, except older, better protected, and more independent. It had never been wrong, which made its record far more trustworthy than the Goblet of Fire.

Hermione sighed as the light pierced her eyelids, signaling the advent of morning. She opened her eyes and sat up, putting on her slippers and her thin robe. Humming one of the chants to herself, she walked to her open window, breathing in the young air. She always kept her window open, even during the frigid winter. Charms brought the freshness into the room while warding against the extremes of the elements.

She stared out at the steel gray sky and smiled. Somehow, a thunderstorm managed to brighten her day as much as sunshine. Today, she supposed she would go through her initial cleansing ritual and her chanting in the empty sanctuary before retiring to the library. Like at Hogwarts, she was known for her book-reading among the Medicus Order. If anyone wanted to find her, they would wait in the library until she came in a little past noon with her lunch in hand, like clockwork. She did not mind reverting to her old persona. While the Medicus library was not extensive, it provided her with enough books to satisfy her insatiable curiosity and fill her days with a quiet pastime. This freedom in her new life when she did not have a client gave her an opportunity for contemplation and discussion which she never had in her past.

It was in the library that Marilyn Savage, the head Elder of the Order, found her, curled like a child next to the hearth, eyes half-glazed as they moved slowly over the small letters, taking a patient joy in them. Marilyn waited until Hermione noticed her before approaching. With a sheepish grin, Hermione untucked her legs from under her and sat up straight, setting the book aside.

Marilyn stayed silent as she joined Hermione before the hearth. They stared at the fire as Hermione waited for Marilyn to speak. She knew Marilyn would tell her what was on her mind eventually - Marilyn liked mystery and suspense. She knew how to milk a significant silence. She loved the power she had as the head Elder, and she playfully flaunted it when she could.

"We received a request," Marilyn said, breaking the silence. "A request for a permanent contract. This person is high profile in the media and, for both reasons, must remain anonymous to the Medicus Order until his or her request is rejected or accepted."

Marilyn turned her gray eyes to Hermione's interested face.

"We fed the request to the Oracle. Against _my_ better judgment, it selected you as the most compatible Medicus for this person's needs. However, the contract requested _is_ permanent, so you can decide whether to reject or accept his request now. After your decision, you cannot withdraw."

Hermione inhaled deeply before letting the air out in a rush. A permanent contract. Unlike temporary contracts, which were largely informal and protected only by the smallest series of spells that prevented only eternal harm to the Medicus and her relationship with her client, permanent contracts delved into the ancient magics. The bond between the Medicus and the client became closer than family, even closer than marriage. The Medicus felt every nuance of the client's health, the swell of emotion, the pulse of thoughts. The magical contract forced the Medicus and the client to keep themselves from harming the other in a malicious manner. In such close quarters, tensions ran high, opinions differed, and tempers exploded - after all, a Medicus was only human. The contract prevented any sort of violence from occurring during the moments when such occasions presented themselves.

But what concerned Hermione the most, and what concerned Marilyn as well, was that a permanent contract was just that: permanent until the Medicus or the client died. Hermione had only experienced three contracts, all temporary. She was, in comparison to the rest of the Medicus Order, extremely unqualified for such a responsibility and honor. The Oracle often gave the rare requests for permanent contracts to the older, veteran healers. Hermione was only twenty six years old, practically a child to the Elders although she had achieved full Medicus recognition three years ago. She was respected for her unusual intelligence and her experience in... other things, but to have a permanent contract so early in her Medicus career and life meant being bound to one client for a _very _long time.

Hermione knew the other reason why Marilyn was worried: the high profile aspect of the client meant that Hermione would be back in the spotlight again. Her past would inevitably find its way into the media, and both she and her client would have to endure the consequences. Also, due to the Medicus Order's nonpartisanship, the client's high profile could, in fact, be a result of the client's Death Eater status or some other known supporter of Voldemort.

There was that name, the name Hermione had tried to leave behind her when she burned the cloak in the fireplace six years ago - the name that went with her Dark Mark, the name that echoed in her hidden memories, that hissed within the war-ridden wizarding community. Marilyn knew how fragile Hermione's hold on her serenity was and how difficult it had been to move beyond that past into a more neutral state. If the potential client brought her close to the past, Hermione might lose her capability to act fully as a proper Medicus. Marilyn was too fond of Hermione to watch her fall apart, and she was too professional to leave a client with a useless Medicus.

Either way, a high profile client posed a difficult choice for Hermione. Marilyn did not know why the Oracle chose Hermione for this particular assignment, but she was willing to pledge her faith on its accuracy. Now would not be a good time for it to be wrong.

Hermione's mind was reeling from the news. Hiring a Medicus was not cheap, and hiring a Medicus for a permanent contract required an even higher fee. She wondered who had enough money to even consider a Medicus rather than an ordinary Healer. Not only did the Medicus require the usual salary of over one hundred Galleons for a single week, the client provided room and board and anything else that the Medicus needed and that she could not acquire on her own. Whoever this potential client was, he or she was desperate and perfectly willing to pay the exorbitant price. The curiosity alone was enough to weigh her decision, but her darker doubts lingered.

"I don't suppose you'll tell me which side this client is on," Hermione sighed, curling in the chair again.

Marilyn smiled. "A true Medicus would not care."

"An _ideal_ Medicus, you mean," Hermione retorted good-naturedly. They had debated this issue before. "An ideal Medicus does not exist."

"It is a difficult endeavor, Hermione, but one for which you should always strive. However, I do acknowledge that your situation is... exceptional and unusual. This is why I stress your need to consider all possible results of accepting or rejecting this proposal."

_"If you were to become a Medicus and were given a client - I don't know how the Medicus is chosen for each client, but it is supposed to be objective and final - you would have to serve that client, be he a member of the Order of the Phoenix or a Death Eater. Nonpartisan, Miss Granger. And there are instances when life-long bonds are requested. Imagine being bound to Lucius Malfoy for the rest of his days, healing his every malady, if he were willing to pay the price for a Medicus."_

Severus had not known the complexity of the Medicus Order, but his words returned to her full force, and she realized more fully the risk she might be taking if she accepted the request. Her fingers slid under her left sleeve, resuming the habit that Hermione thought she had broken years ago. Her Dark Mark seemed to hum as she stroked it. She thought nothing of the feeling. It had happened so often since her release from... she would not remind herself of it. It was simply a common occurrence that was probably comparable to Harry's scar.

"Do you want the night to think over it?" Marilyn murmured, seeing the conflict in Hermione's darkening eyes.

"Yes, please," Hermione replied, settling back in her chair and wrapping her arms around her.

"Very well." Marilyn touched Hermione's arm lightly before leaving her to the empty library.

Rather than going to sleep at her normal time, she returned to the sanctuary. The mustiness about her held memories, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost hear them and see them. The smell of incense and the dimness of the stained glass after the sun set usually cleared her head, but not even her favorite mantras and meditations could stop the whirling of time in her head. She tried to set the past aside. Marilyn was right - her past clouded her judgment as a Medicus. In such a decision, she had to be rational and objective. Her quivering was nothing, merely the coldness of the storm outside seeping into the open sanctuary. The fear coursing through her veins was due to the permanence of the contract, not the possibilities.

A memory of her own surfaced, her trial period in an extension of St. Mungo's. Her mentor, Shannon Langley, stood behind her as one of the Healers brought a young man half-seared with dragon burns into the room.

_"Is this injury cured with a simple spell like__ with__ ordinary fire?" Shannon asked Hermione in her ear._

_"No," Hermione replied. "As a magically-produced fire, this burn must be immediately treated with a potion salve, preferably one applied by hand directly to the skin. Pyrus's Elixir, I would suggest."_

_The Healer handed her the salve that he had hidden behind __him_

_"Very good," Shannon said. "Now apply the salve evenly over the burned flesh."_

_Hermione froze with the vial held tight in her fingers. The Healer, unaware of Hermione's reaction, pulled away the sheet over the lower half of the man's body, leaving him naked. The burn extended down the side of his right leg and over his hip._

_The salve slipped from her fingers. Shannon, anticipating Hermione's response to such an order, caught the vial before it hit the ground. With one hand, she opened Hermione's hands and poured the salve into them. Gently, she led Hermione to the man and helped her apply the salve. The man was healed by the end of the lesson, but Hermione did not leave her room for days. Shannon knew to wait._

Hermione reacquainted herself with the simple touch of a healer, the whispered words in her ear, the comfort of an embrace. She avoided them when she could, but she had learned to put her duties before her past; she no longer flinched when someone reached out to her. All three of her clients had needed companionship that required contact, and by the time she was a full Medicus, she willingly gave what was needed. She saw death and its residue again, but it was not the death that the Dark powers dealt. She saw pain, but it was pain that could be healed. In healing others, she began to mend.

She pulled the blanket around her as the doves in the rafters cooed and fluttered their wings at a particularly insistent howl from the wind. It reminded her that she needed to brew Wolfsbane again for Remus and a few of his friends that were shut in his flat after being newly introduced to lycanthropy by the werewolves on Voldemort's side. It was a favor for a friend, not the product of a surreptitious political agenda, so she was allowed to provide them with the potion when Severus was unable to brew himself at the moment due to his part in the war. Medicus were permitted friends, one allowance that made Hermione weep when first she was able to leave her training to live for a little while in Remus's flat. Harry came to visit her then as a break from his training as well, and for a few hours, she took comfort in the idle chatter, the cheap but appreciated tea, and the smiles and support. She would have liked Ron to be there, but he still had not forgiven her.

Eight years later, their conflict had not resolved. Harry wrote to her, saying that Ron was beginning to believe her now that Ginny was working on him. But Ron was afraid of her, afraid of admitting that he was wrong, afraid of what happened to her, afraid of what she might have become and what she might do to him, and afraid of the Medicus Order, as any pureblood wizard was. Hermione wanted to go to him. But when she saw Ginny at her new flat that she shared with Ron and Harry and Luna, Ron and Hermione did not talk or look at each other. Hermione took the slight in stride - it was easier with time - and she was glad that she was no longer under the scrutiny of Mrs. Weasley at the Burrow now that all the children were out of the home.

She enjoyed the quiet times with Ginny when they delved into the Muggle world for their mindless entertainment that helped them forget when simply seeing each other brought the memories forward. She loved that Ginny, who had denounced her so completely when she lost all hope, believed her now. Sometimes Luna came for a girls' night out, but often, there was just the two of them. They were growing up into women, but it was nice to be girls for a time. They never spoke of their futures or their pasts. The present was where their life had to be. After the long talk that they had a year after Hermione left Hogwarts, they felt the connection of that thread of darkness that had held them, a connection Hermione appreciated when there was no one else who could truly understand.

Even with Ginny, Ron, Harry, Remus, and Severus occasionally, her memories were there, but they never ventured past the carefully constructed wall that Hermione built around them. They hovered along the wall like gargoyles now. She could see them waiting, crimson eyes intelligent and knowing. Hermione was scared. The anguished eyes of the crucified Christ at the front of this sanctuary intensified her fear.

The question really came down to whether she could trust herself to remain nonpartisan and detached from the war with a person right in the middle of it. It was a challenge, and that alone piqued her interest; however, it was her desire for a challenge that started her on the path to the Dark Arts in the first place, that haunted her with black stone statues and claws dripping with blood and violent hisses and burning flesh and sweat and skin. It was her desire for a challenge that brought her into darkness. She would not choose to accept the request for a challenge.

Hermione realized that she already thought of the request as something to accept rather than reject. This new understanding sank deep in her stomach, and her vision blurred for a moment. She was going to accept it. She had accepted it when it was presented to her.

She was an awful, awful, awful, weak person. Hermione leaned her forehead against her hands. She knew what she might end up having to do; she knew that all the awful things from before could happen again when she was brought back into the spotlight, but she still wanted to do it.

It was not the challenge that a permanent contract offered. It was that she was _challenged_. Many of the other healers of the Medicus Order did not really see her as one of them, not when she came to the Medicus Order for different reasons than they did. They felt for her after reading the newspapers and then hearing her own testimony. They helped her, and they were always willing to train her when one of the elders asked for their assistance. Hermione was likable, and they believed her to be an asset to the establishment, a perfect example of the benefits of nonpartisanship and a good catch because of her quick mind. The Medicus Order was proud of her growth and accomplishments.

But she was still closely tied to the war, so closely tied that Hermione found herself in conflict with many of the healers regarding her allegiances. They could not tell her to stop meeting with her friends, no matter how close they were to a particular side, any more than any of them wanted to stop seeing their own friends and family. They could not tell her to stop hating Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Hermione had crossed the fine line from partisanship to personal vendetta. The elders all knew that it had not been her fault entirely that she found herself in the very midst of the war simply by those she hated and loved.

However, the impossibility of her full nonpartisanship was the cause of a great deal of strife among the healers that were bound to people who Hermione knew supported Voldemort or the corrupted side of the Ministry. These healers who were devoted to their cause, even if they did not agree with the crimes their patients committed, hated that Hermione _could_ _not_ be so objective with her patients. They challenged her to set aside her allegiances as she set aside her past. Hermione knew better than to believe that they knew best - there were some scars even a Medicus could not completely heal - but their rejection of her with this one issue stabbed her straight in the heart of her desire to be a part of them as she vowed to be eight years ago.

Her pride surfaced like a drowned flower, and she knew that she accepted the request. She would bind herself to an Order member or a Death Eater or a Ministry member, and she would do so without a complaint. Hermione would be torn to shreds on any side she aided. Her black gargoyles took wing with the memories that confronted her, and she shivered at the howl of the wind and quake of thunder. Wrapping the blanket about her and singing a serenity chant softly, she left the sanctuary. Marilyn was outside the door, waiting for her. Hermione's stomach and her original, shadowed understanding plummeted even further when Marilyn handed her the request letter, her eyes downcast and her mouth in a tight line.

"I still do not know why the Oracle chose you," Marilyn said before the seal was broken. "But, as ever, I trust its judgment and can only hope that you will trust it as well. I do not know what else to say."

Hermione opened the request letter. The structure and language was traditional form for a reques, with a few modifications for a permanent contract and personal touch. Hermione read the clean script with slowly whitening cheeks and darkening eyes. When she finished, she rolled the parchment and magically sealed it with the blue seal of the Medicus Order, turning the letter into the signed contract.

Cold, precise, and dispassionate, Hermione turned to Marilyn and said, "I accept his request and will be escorted to his fortress three days from now at his proposed time and place. Tell Lord Voldemort that I am pleased to be his Medicus."

Read? Review!

**Author notes:** Unlike the Abyss discussion forums, for Ascent, I'll do discussion forums for individual chapters.

My Abyss/Ascent livejournal community that holds all of my forums can be foundhttp: Feel free to come by every once in a while and contribute. (Note: It's not a review forum, but a discussion forum)

Thank you for waiting so long for this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Resentment? Reservations? Rave? Review.


	2. Chapter Two

**Title:** Ascent (02)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Medicus Remus  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** I had a heck of a time with this chapter, but I think I have it done properly now. It's shorter, like the last one, but as the plot becomes meatier, so will the chapters. 

**Chapter 2**

_He sneered when she walked in with the cloak__ around her shoulders_

_"I told you to burn that, Miss Granger," Snape said, closing the door behind her._

_She touched the clasp gently before laughing. "Very good to see you, too, __Severus__, and I do believe I've asked you to call me Hermione. Professors don't have dinner with their students, and there is no reason for you to treat me like one._

_"Hiding behind his cloak will not help you... Hermione."_

She Levitated her trunk into the middle of the room. It would take only a wave of her wand to pack everything, but she did not need that much time on her hands. Not now. Now she needed something else to engage her attention rather than the coldness clenching around her chest, around slowly burning fire. Her Dark Mark thrummed for a moment before settling into stillness.

She began with her books first.

_"I like the cloak," she said, following him into the sitting room.__ "It's just something I throw on when I go out. There is no deep psychological reasoning behind it."_

_"If i__t's no different from any other cloak__, then why do you persist in keeping it when you have a cloak of your own rather than his?__" he replied. He sat in an armchair. She sat on the couch opposite him. They were never closer than a table's width. The Dark Mark __they shared always created the subtle distance __between them, but they, unlike some of her other friends__, at least shared that darker knowledge that no one else could possibly understand. "The difference is only in the smell, and that is why you keep it. That is why you concern me."_

_She looked down at her hands. "I'm flattered, Severus, but I don't need your concern."_

It was a simple task to shrink her library, one by one, to fit into a box, but it was aptly time-consuming, and the light was clear and mild through the clouds when she was finished, taking proper care of the rarer books and smiling at the less serious ones, the books that made her giggle in the dark of the night when nightmares plagued her even when she was awake. Candlelight and a children's story always made things right enough to go back to sleep.

The gargoyles flew about her head. They did not sink their claws and teeth into her like they used to. They were just present, and that was effective enough to make her tremble as she stood to fold her robes.

They were the same robes from her Head Girl year. She saw no reason to throw aside perfectly serviceable robes, so she had, with Shannon's permission, taken the robes to Madam Malkin and had them dyed to the midnight blue of the Medicus Order. They were also taken in to fit her thinner frame. Madam Malkin stared at her Dark Mark and the sharp angles of her collarbone, hips, and shoulders. But the forbidding look in Medicus Langley's eyes prevented Madam Malkin from saying anything untoward. They left the small shop and Diagon Alley as soon as they could. No one would dare say anything to Hermione with a Medicus at her arm, but the glares hurt her so that she shook under Shannon's hand. Shannon had come up to her room that night with hot chocolate and anecdotes brought a rare smile to Hermione's lips.

She never fully regained her bookworm figure. Her appetite was often absent, and when she was without a client, she took walks in the mornings and sometimes at night. She liked to walk freely and know for certain that she was safe.

The gargoyles shrieked.

_A house elf that Hermione barely noticed anymore served them dinner there in the sitting room, like he always did when Hermione came over to the house.__ Hermione reached for her plate._

_"Don't you dare pretend with me, Hermione," Snape hissed. "You joined the Medicus Order to avoid him, and yet you keep your ties to him connected as he wants them to be. The Dark Mark cannot be escaped, but you have control over your mind, your body. I want that cloak burned if you truly want to be free of him._

_"You know, Severus, that we will _never_ be free."_

She sat on her trunk, the light in her rooms dimmed to the glow of her candles. She missed Crookshanks, who had died three years ago. She missed being able to turn her head ans find him staring at her, comforting and dependable. She had thought about finding a new familiar, but she never found the time, which made her think that she did not really want a new one. And she doubted that the Dark Lord would be willing to accommodate his old pet's new familiar.

So she sat there and shivered.

There was a knock on the door of Remus's flat. Hermione came in without waiting for Remus to let her in.

"You could have Flooed, Hermione," he said, without looking up from his desk. A few of his new werewolves looked up from the couch and the hearth rug.

"I needed the walk," she replied, setting a rack of vials on his desk - Wolfsbane that she had promised him and completed only a few hours before.

He gave her a small smile and stood to greet her. "I'll bet you did."

Her stomach sank. "They already know," she said, resigned to repeated history.

"All Medicus contracts are available to the public, and permanent ones always capture the interest of the Ministry. Particularly when the one requesting the Medicus is the Dark Lord and particularly when the Medicus chosen is... you. Reporters were bound to catch wind of it, especially since you've been so quiet after your last assignment."

He accepted her as she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. He did not expect her to cry, and she didn't. She never did anymore. But he appreciated the effort and hard work it had taken her to be comfortable with him holding her, and he stroked her head gently as she breathed in and out, in and out, her own way of crying.

"I suppose they glossed over the part that I couldn't know it was Lord Voldemort when I accepted the request," she muttered.

"Of course," Remus replied. "It would be no fun if you weren't to blame somehow."

She barked out a quick laugh - Remus knew how rare it was, and he let himself thread his fingers through Hermione's hair before pushing away. She sighed and gave a tired wave of hello to the werewolves in front of the fire who were staring at her. They reciprocated a little warily, but since Remus treated her like a friend rather than an enemy, they would accept that, despite what they had been told, she _was_ a friend. The newspapers were never right anyway.

"So it's all over the _Prophet_," Hermione said, taking Remus's chair. "I should have known better than to expect I would have one more day of anonymity."

"At least no one can refuse your business now," Remus pointed out. "As a Medicus, they are too afraid of you to arouse the wrath of the Order by insulting or denying any of its members." Remus knelt before her. "Enough light talk, Hermione. How do you _feel_?"

"Honestly, Remus?" she said, leaning against the desk. He nodded. "I feel like someone has plunged their hand into my chest and pulled out my still-beating heart before replacing it with a block of ice. I don't feel anything except a tingle along my skin. I feel like my Dark Mark ought to be burning, but it doesn't, and I'm just so cold. I'm scared, Remus. I'm scared that I'll take one look at him and... shatter. Those other people, the ones I don't know, I don't care about them - they have no idea what being a Medicus is. I care about my position. I care about my friends. And I care what happens to me. I can't think about him without seeing myself at his feet while he pets me. I would truly like to know why the Oracle had to choose me. Were all the more appropriate Medicus on assignment with his Death Eaters?"

"Hermione," he murmured, holding out his hand for her to take. She clung to his fingers. "I will speak to the Order, specifically to Albus. I know how the Medicus Order works better than any of them, and they will want to know what this means for them - but some of them will want to know what it means for you. They need to know that you will not be working _against_ them. But you... you should not worry about them, and you should not... "

Remus sighed in frustration that he could not tell her what he wanted to say. He leaned forward, and Hermione lifted her eyes to his. "I know this will mean little to you now, but I want you to listen to me and think about it later. _You decide whether you will let him have power over you, Hermione._ The Dark Mark means _nothing_ when you are his Medicus. You have power over him now. _He_ asked for _your_ help. This is something that you need to remember. It is up to you to establish your place with him. It will be difficult, and there will be many who will work against you, but this is a singular opportunity. You will understand when it is important for you to understand."

"I cannot be a spy or work for the Order on the inside," Hermione said. "That is not our way."

"That is not what I mean," Remus said. "Hermione, I do not hate you for what you will do. Albus will not hate you, and Severus will not hate you. If you explain more fully to Harry and Ginny, they will not hate you. At least they shouldn't. Do not feel shame for this. I know your Order, and I know this is what you have been called to do. Somehow, Hermione - and this may not be what you want to hear - you are connected to the Dark Lord. You have spent the last eight years detaching yourself from him, but you know that..."

"...I'll never be free."

"It is not a matter of being a prisoner, love. The Oracle _must_ know what it did when it chose you. Think on that. When I heard of his new Medicus, I am afraid that I was not surprised." He touched her face gently. "You've spoken with me about him, and you've seen parts of him that I think none of his Death Eaters, even Albus, will ever know or even imagine. What you went through is something _only you_ can understand. You... and the Dark Lord. But do not fear that you will be serving the Dark Lord. You will be serving Voldemort, and they are two very different personas."

"I'm not to serve the Dark Lord," she whispered with dawning comprehension. Remus smiled and sat back.

"That will be your salvation, Hermione, when you embrace fully what you have been called to do. I do not like that you are brought back to... to him. I do not like that you will be with him so completely. I want..."

"I know, Remus," she said, clenching his hand tight. "I want to be with the Order of the Phoenix. I want... but even if I were a Medicus for Albus, I could not help. When I became a Medicus, I chose to put that behind me and... neither side... Remus... I chose neither side. Because neither wanted me. Now I wonder if that was the right choice."

"It doesn't matter," Remus said, "and that is the point. It is what you are, what you were meant to be now that you are. And I think that if the Dark Lord is to have a Medicus, you, Hermione, will be the best Medicus for him. You will be devoted enough to our side through your friendships to avoid helping him in the war - your unique position within the Medicus Order allows you to be far more subjective with such a delicate subject. You will know what needs to be done."

Hermione granted him a weak smile.

"Think about it, Hermione," Remus whispered. "_You_ can have the power now, Hermione. He cannot control you anymore if you do not want to be controlled."

_"You give him power when you permit him to," Snape said. "By allowing him to __envelop your life still when you pretend that you are strong does not help you. And if you do not want to be strong, then there is no need for you to continue these visits with me.__ I will not waste my time on a coward, especially not a Gryffindor coward._

She waited in Diagon Alley. She knew that Voldemort wanted to make a scene by taking her in a public forum, but she, as a Medicus and not as Hermione, felt obligated to follow his wishes. And everyone knew that she was his Medicus now anyway. No need to hide. No need to hide.

_Hermione looked at him, stricken._

_"I was asked to help you. _You_ asked me to help you. You did not listen to me when I told you not to join the Medicus Order, and I will accept that__. You have improved with their help__," Snape said. "But listen to _me_ now. Destroy ever__y__ last piece of him that you cling to, that which you can destroy anyway.__ Or else he will always have a hold on you, and you will be nothing but his pet for the rest of your life."_

She did not avoid the stares of those who skirted around her. She instead turned inward, murmuring to herself chants that kept her heart rate slow and relaxed.

"Hermione."

She turned to see Harry and Ginny. She saw Ron in the background, determinedly standing in the middle of a group of Diagon Alley regulars, and he was not looking at her. The old pang in her heart pierced more deeply, but Harry and Ginny needed her attention now.

"I am not joining him," she said at once. "I did not choose him. I chose to accept an anonymous request for a permanent contract. I didn't know. Please, you believed me then, believe me now, I will never betray you, or the Order... please, Harry, Ginny, please..."

"Hermione," Harry interrupted. "You have been a part of the Medicus Order for this long, and you have been good and brave for all eight years. You've given me no reason to believe that you would ever betray us, not if you did not when you were with him last. It's been a while, but I talked to Remus again last night - just like old times. He said you were going to come to see us about it..."

"There were things I had to set in order," Hermione said. "I tried to see you - I needed to talk to you - but no one was there."

Ginny looked back at Ron.

"Oh," Hermione said.

Ginny's eyes were sparkling with tears. "So you're going back to him."

"Not like... not like I was," Hermione said hesitatingly.

"Don't... don't let him inside your mind," Ginny stammered. "If he tries, come see me. He will let you do that, won't he? See us?"

"I _will_ come and see you, whether he allows it or not," Hermione said. "I must attend to my own well-being as much as his."

"This is strange," Harry muttered, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You going to him. And... we're all okay with that. After Remus explained it... we accept it. Just... don't feel like you cannot talk to us. Even if I'm an Auror, and we're all Order members. You can still talk to us if you need it."

Hermione looked at him for a moment like she was trying to read his mind. "Harry, I cannot tell you about him. I cannot give secrets away. I cannot tell you his weaknesses or where his fortress is. Understand that, Harry. I _cannot_. I am Medicus, impartial to political divisions, and I cannot show undue favor to one side or the other. I stretch the limit already."

Harry withdrew his hand and looked down.

"We... know," Ginny said with difficulty.

"Oh, Ginny," Hermione said, drawing her close. "I will come back for a holiday soon, I'm sure. I _will_. You and I, we need to stay together. Especially during these times. I hate pain, and I will not allow it to continue."

"Hermione," Harry said, still looking down, "I think things will be strained between us. It is our goal to kill Voldemort, and you..."

The gargoyles shrieked.

"Yes, Harry, I." The coldness spread its icicle fingers, and she pulled away from Ginny. The intangible walls enveloped her, alienated her, and she felt the pang of loss again.

_She stared at the fire that night, staring at the e__ver shifting flame and the energy intense __within its contained destruction. Taking a deep, shaking breath, she unfastened her cloak. She held it in her hands, bundled in a rope__, brought it to her face and breathed in the scent that had calmed and stirred her blood. Flashes of memory, the feel of his fingers on her face, dripping warm water on her cheeks, backhanding her after__ healing her, licking his boot__, crimson eyes taking her in_

_On impulse, with the hum of his Dark Mark vibrating through her body, she threw the cloak into the fire. Her heart constricted, but she was well and sle__pt without nightmares for a__ night_

_The next time she visited Severus, her cloak smelled__ only__ of her._

"In our own ways, Harry, I suppose it our place to work against one another," she said. "But..." She reached out, touched his chin, and lifted his head. "I will _always_ be your friend. Know that what I must do may not be what I want to do."

"This is going to be difficult, isn't it?" Harry murmured.

Hermione smiled without mirth. "Perhaps the most difficult thing we have ever faced. And knowing us, that is saying something."

"Medicus."

A voice she recognized but could not place. Tall, broad, hooded and cloaked in black, but draped in the white of diplomacy, he bowed before her.

"It is time," he said. "The Dark Lord waits for you."

"He is using you," Harry whispered, looking about them. They were encircled by the crowd of Diagon Alley, all eyes focused on the Death Eater in their midst and the Medicus to whom he extended his hand. "He wants them to see that you are still his."

"He is smart, Harry," Hermione said. "He knows how to play a crowd. I don't care anymore. Let them stare at the Dark Lord's pet. I'm _not _his pet _anymore_." She spat the last statement with a vehemence that startled the Death Eater, and he leaned away for a moment, uncertain.

Unsheathing her wand, she glanced at Ron and mouthed, "I'm sorry." Then she took the Death Eater's hand, and, without warning, he Disapparated them both.

They appeared in the forest, where the air about them chilled her more than the winter accounted for, and she could see the lawn and the fortress at the top of the hill. Memories assaulted her, gargoyles tearing into her flesh. She felt like the child Hermione and the Medicus Hermione at the same time, and she hesitated, bringing her hand to her head as a wave of vertigo made the earth move.

"Hermione," the Death Eater said.

Her head jerked up.

"We must continue," he said. "The Dark Lord is impatient to meet his Medicus."

"Does he know?" Hermione asked quietly.

The Death Eater was silent for a minute. "No. None of us can have a subscription to the _Daily Prophet_ for obvious reasons, not even Carmen anymore. But he suspected your situation would be well-publicized."

"But he doesn't know that _I_ am his Medicus," Hermione said.

"No," the Death Eater replied. "Now let's go."

He put a hand on the small of her back to guide her up the hill. She wrenched away. The Death Eater did not press the matter, and they entered the fortress, Hermione a few paces behind him. Schematics of the fortress that she knew flashed through her mind for a second, the ghost of a metal collar around her neck. Her heart beat in her throat, and she was light-headed from the gravity of her situation and the weight of memory.

They stopped in front of the audience chamber, and the Death Eater removed his hood to reveal MacNair, handsome, cruel, and bewildered.

"All the Death Eaters are here to... welcome you," he said. Then he pushed open the doors, striding forward to the throne at the end of the chamber. Hermione could see the Dark Lord's reclining figure, and she hid her face under the shadow of her own cloak.

"My lord," MacNair said, sliding the white drape from his shoulders and laying it at the Dark Lord's feet. "Your Medicus has arrived."

The Dark Lord stood, his body and movement as graceful and elegant as she remembered. She felt the thrumming of her Dark Mark.

Anxiety twisting her stomach, she stepped forward into the audience chamber, pausing as the doors closed behind her. Then she slowly made her way down the length of the room. She felt eyes on her, but no recognition, for they could not see her.

"Welcome, my Medicus," the Dark Lord said, bending at his waist enough to show respect while maintaining his dignified status.

Finally, she stood just behind MacNair. She raised her head and took off her cloak, giving it to MacNair's outstretched hand.

The Dark Lord froze.

"Thank you, Lord Voldemort," Hermione answered, staring straight into his crimson eyes.

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**Author notes:** Tell me what you thought.


	3. Chapter Three

**Title:** Ascent (03)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Medicus Voldemort Death Eaters  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** I have something to say, but I'm not going to say it. 

**Chapter 3**

Their gazes remained locked for several seconds; the tension between the two crackled with repressed magical energy. Although they were still, motionless, they seemed to crouch, wary.

Within those moments, she saw past the passion of his red eyes to the flood of emotion behind them. Shock, fury, apprehension, bemusement... and finally, calculation. His shoulder relaxed, and he motioned for Macnair to return to his place among the masses of people and creatures around him.

_More than before_, she thought to herself. Although she could not see them, she heard the rustle of robes from the Death Eaters, Cat's Paws, Black Dogs, and other followers of Voldemort who knew her when she belonged to Voldemort. Voldemort was thinking quickly. Hermione waited for him to make the decision.

"Hermione," he murmured, taking a step down from the raised dais. "The Oracle chose you."

Although he said it as a statement, there was an obvious question.

"Yes, Lord Voldemort," she answered. "I was the Oracle's first choice for you."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes, studying her. He reached the floor, and Hermione, acting by pure training, lifted the hem of her midnight blue robes and knelt, but she did not bow her head before him. Procedure she would do, but she would not yield power by presenting her neck. That is what it was about... power for both of them now. She, as a Medicus and as Hermione Granger, could not show herself as a mewling, begging servant, but as a partner, a person of prestige within his ranks. Voldemort's problems were clear, but it was his move, not hers.

"Hermione," he whispered, his fingers just shy of touching her cheek. Her Dark Mark hummed gently. "I knew you were a Medicus-in-training, but I had no idea that you were a Medicus so quickly. Or that you were a Medicus of the caliber for the Oracle to choose you to serve me."

Another murmur among the followers. Hermione felt a twinge of annoyance.

"I am not going to serve you, Lord Voldemort," Hermione said over the noise. The hall silenced, and Voldemort's fingertips brushed against her skin. She did not flinch, only on the inside. "Should you accept the contract and permanently bind me to you and you to me, I will not be your servant. You will pay me my salary because you have no choice - because the magical contract will not allow you to refuse. But I will not be your servant." She stood and said softly enough for only Voldemort to hear. "Nor will I be the pet for you to play with. That isn't what you wanted. It is coincidental that _I_ am the Medicus for you."

Voldemort circled her slowly, eyes boring down into hers. She flushed a little but moved with him.

Finally, he stood still, as though he never moved at all. "Well, well, Hermione," he said. "It seems I underestimated you."

The silence in the hall was absolute.

Voldemort stepped back, away from Hermione so that she could breathe evenly again.

"I predicted that you would be crawling back on your hands and knees, your Dark Mark bared on your arm as you pleaded to join me. I knew that you would come back, but I never imagined... this."

"It's a disgrace," said another voice from the crowd.

"Lucius," Voldemort hissed. "You have a protest?"

"Not only is she a Mudblood, but for all that she was here before, she cannot be something as honorable as your Medicus," Lucius said, wary of the rippling of magic about Voldemort's body.

"There would have been a time, my lord, when you would have tossed her to Avery and myself," Nott added. "She was a child then, and we certainly would not deny such a pretty piece of flesh now."

Voldemort raised a brow. "Really, Nott? As I recall, that was a time when I punished you for touching her. You took that punishment without complaint, Nott. What has changed? Do you doubt my abilities simply because I require a Medicus?"

Hermione watched as Nott backed away, bowing his head to his lord, who started toward him.

"Would you have me settle for a second-rate Medicus, Nott, Lucius?"

"We would not have you settle for _this Mudblood_," Lucius growled. Voldemort whipped around to see Lucius lift his wand and shout, "_Crucio_!"

Voldemort could have cursed Lucius before Lucius cursed Hermione, but then Cruciatus would still hit her. With the lightning reflexes of the cobra he became, he grabbed Hermione by her arms and whipped her away, taking the curse himself. Bracing himself against the pain that he had been subjected to in the days when he was still learning the darkest of the magical arts, he shut his mind away from his body and waited for Lucius to realize his mistake.

The ripple of magic around the Dark Lord pulsed, and Lucius dropped his wand. The sound of the wood hitting the stone floor was deafening. Hermione stared at Voldemort in shock, and Lucius turned as white as his mask as he stumbled back.

"Do you know what you almost did?" Voldemort asked, straightening himself and sliding his wand from his robes.

Hermione felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back.

"You don't want to be in the line of fire," Carmen whispered.

"You, a man who prides himself as a pureblood, dare to attack a full Medicus when we're at war?" Voldemort continued, the volume and pitch of his fury increasing. "Yes, she is a Mudblood, but a capable Mudblood, you know that perfectly well. And she is presently in my hands and under my responsibility - you dare to risk the power of the Medicus Order being turned against us?"

"My lord..." Lucius began, knowing it was futile to protest.

"_Sanguinus crucium_," Voldemort said, the softness of his voice no disguise for his anger.

Voldemort had him writhing on the floor for a full ten minutes, his screams dissipating into rasps from his dry, tortured throat. Lucius's limbs twitched when before they writhed. He could only shake when Voldemort lifted the spell.

"I have waited," Voldemort began, addressing all of his followers, "for eight years. Waited for Hermione to come to me and become one of my faithful Death Eaters. For this, you were prepared. Would you have been so rash if she were one of us?"

Lucius tucked his knees closer to his chest.

"You might have directed a curse or two at her. She would have been, of course, my follower, my _servant_, as you are, as all of you are," Voldemort continued. "But standing here today is not a Death Eater or a servant, but a Medicus. See that before you see a Mudblood. You know the risks."

Voldemort turned to see Carmen hovering near her, watching her and not him. Hermione was looking at Lucius's still shaking form, her fingers twitching a little.

_She wants to heal him_, he realized.

_She's scared, shocked, and more out of her depth than she realizes... she hates me, she hates him... and yet she wants to heal him._

When he wrapped his fingers around her wrist to lead her back into the center of the room, she could not restrain a short gasp, but she let herself be led, his eyes catching hers again.

He let his eyes wander over her face, her neck, the curve of her spine. When she had been his, she always leaned, curled, even when she was defiant. She had been radiant with energy and passion when he made her defiant. She had been completely empty when he broke her. She had been fragile, yet determined, as she tried to recover. But here, now...

"How do I acknowledge the accepted contract?" Voldemort asked.

Hermione's hand caught in the fabric as she reached into her robes to hold out the contract that she had accepted.

"Simply take the contract, and you acknowledge me as your p-permanent Medicus," Hermione replied. "Then we need to... have some privacy for the magical binding."

Voldemort's eyes glinted, and Hermione shook her head. "I simply do not believe that you want to have your Death Eaters watch it when it happens," she said softly.

Voldemort paused. "Later this evening?"

"If you would like," she replied.

He stared at her for another minute. She felt uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny, but she did not react against it.

Finally he reached for her and closed his hand around the contract. It glowed white for a moment before sinking into Voldemort's skin.

She could not breathe, and her stomach turned as Voldemort took her hand and raised it slightly in a salute.

"You're shivering, Hermione," he hissed, drawing her closer.

She looked away. "Are you surprised?"

He did not answer her question, but that was enough.

"This evening, before the dinner, which you will attend," Voldemort said. "My Death Eaters must become re-accustomed to you in a different role. And so do we," he added so that the gentle hiss of his voice caressed the shell of her ear. He wanted her to be frightened, and though she was, she still held her back straight and head high, carried herself like a queen when she courteously pulled her hand from his and inclined her head.

Voldemort returned the action before removing his full attention from her.

"Wormtail," he said. "Please escort Medicus Granger to her chambers."

He was doing this on purpose, she thought grimly. She could not help the roil of disgust when the familiar bent figure shuffled over to her. Wormtail thought to extend his hand but decided against it. Hermione did not think she could endure the feel of him on her skin, and she took a step back. She glared at the Dark Lord, who gave her a small smile.

The murmur of Voldemort's followers returned as the doors closed behind Wormtail and Hermione. She stopped outside the audience chamber, clenching her fists, closing her eyes, and taking in deep breaths against the blackness that tried to sweep through her mind with its tempting oblivion.

_"The best Medicus is level-headed in a situation that wants to destroy her."_

Shannon's words came to her like a balm, and her eyes opened to Wormtail's concern. He had pulled back his hood and removed his mask. He lost hair over the eight years that she had not seen him, and the folds of his face were more pronounced with shadows, but wizards did not age as quickly as Muggles. Although Wormtail looked older due to other circumstances, he really was not changed. She breathed in the cool air again and nodded that she could continue. She tried not to think of sweat and filth and sex and focused instead on Shannon's words and meditation mantras.

"You have your things?" Wormtail asked, fingers plucking nervously at his Death Eaters robes.

"Yes," Hermione said.

Wormtail's eyes darted to look at her before looking away quickly. He led her into a set of corridors that she found familiar. Her stomach sank when she realized where they were going.

"His chambers?" she muttered. _Bastard_. The epithet made her feel better.

"No," Wormtail said. "He wanted the rooms to be next to his, but he had the utmost respect for his future Medicus. He wanted her to have a place of her own."

"How generous," she said.

Wormtail stiffened a bit. "It was," he murmured into his collarbone as he turned into the corridor where she recognized Voldemort's door. "It's the chambers that he originally wanted _you_ to take while he waited for you. He had it changed after his Medicus was selected. You'll like the chambers now."

Hermione side-stepped Wormtail as she entered the room, taking her small bag that held her Reduced trunks from one of her skirt pockets. Wormtail was right, she liked the chambers. It was a room catered to a Medicus - but she supposed that there were other rooms in the fortress catered to Medicus. Katherine, Melanie, Lillian... the Death Eaters Medicus. She was one of them now, in her own way. The thought hurt her head, so she set it aside for the moment.

The colors were a tasteful scheme of blues, golds, and grays paired with lighter-toned wood and glass. She even had a window that faced the forest. Voldemort did not have a window in his chambers, so she supposed that this one was charmed and not a real window at all. But it had the proper effect, and she felt more comfortable in this room than she expected. Certainly less closed in and assaulted than by the burgundies and golds with accents of green and dark wood. Here, the atmosphere was less energetic and more serene. There were empty shelves on the opposite side of the room from the sitting area and bed, and an open space for her to assemble her lab. She breathed a sigh of relief that she would not have to ask to use Severus's laboratory, although she would eventually want to explore his shelves for ingredients or possibly some useful potion ready-made.

_He took a drink so that the flask was only half-full. He closed his eyes as he savored the taste, and like watching him create magic, she found herself transfixed __by__ the vulnerable movement of his white throat as he swallowed._

She set the drawstring bag on the desk before turning back to Wormtail. He was staring at her body and swallowing. She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around her body to cover herself from his gaze. She felt stripped from the power that made her a Medicus, like she was the school girl in the shift with his cold silver hand and hot sweaty flesh squeezing her breasts and hips and arse and thighs. Like she was in his bed again. Like no time had passed at all.

"The Dark Lord sh-should attend to y-you soon," Wormtail finally stammered, forcing himself to look at her face instead of the shadow that her breasts made on the bared skin above her neckline. "You should s-start setting things in o-order."

Medicus training taught her to thank him, but she could not, and he left with one last look at her. She did not want to know what he was thinking.

Holding the desk for balance, she lowered herself into the chair behind the desk. The sunlight was dim over the forest - she forgot that the time zone was different here. She knew the fortress was not in Great Britain; the terrain pointed toward somewhere north or east of home.

She spent the rest of the evening staring at the window, only managing to Expand her trunks and open a few of them. It was unprofessional to let her personal troubles prevent her from doing her duty, which at the moment should be arranging the room how it should be for the best economy of space and function as a room for a Medicus, but she needed a few moments to settle herself.

When he came, he did not knock, but he made his presence known so that he did not startle her. She saw it as the effort it was, and Hermione stood respectfully. Her mouth thinned as she felt the blood drain from her face.

"You're still afraid of me, Hermione," he said, closing the door behind him.

She did not answer him, but she looked down before raising her chin again. Her Dark Mark hummed again.

"I have watched you ever since you left. Not watched exactly, so much as felt." He walked to the center of the room, held a hand out for her to come to him. "Your fear used to be so exquisite, and your anger, your despair. But slowly, it dissolved into peace, contentment. When I learned of your acceptance into a Medicus apprenticeship, I was almost glad. I almost liked that swell of pride you felt then. I knew that when you fell again, you would fall harder. But you never fell. And look at you now... my Medicus. Frightened of me, but... you've passed it, haven't you?"

"Passed it?" Hermione said. "If you mean I don't need people as a crutch anymore, I don't think about you and what you did to me, I don't fear that I'll fall beneath you again, you're dead wrong. But I can see you without screaming, which is an improvement. On the rare occasion my dreams feature you, they no longer resemble nightmares. I can live with what happened now."

"You're confident enough to tell me," Voldemort replied as Hermione approached him.

"This is my profession, Lord Voldemort, and it is based on a degree of trust. A binding, especially a permanent binding, may be more invasive than either of us likes." She stood before him, an arm's-length away. "Tell me something, anything, something you need to hear yourself say before we do this."

Voldemort cocked his head slightly. "I am pleased that you returned this way rather than as my pet again."

"You won't be," Hermione said. "Do you know all that the permanent binding entails between the Medicus and her client?"

"I read the available literature on the subject," Voldemort said sharply. "Do you think I would ask for a Medicus if I was not aware of the gravity of the request?"

"I'll be more than your Healer, Lord Voldemort," Hermione replied, raising her voice a little. "You will have few secrets from me, and I will have few secrets from you. In every way, I will be an extension of you, and you of me - make sure that your Death Eaters understand _that_ if they understand nothing else." She took a deep breath. "Forgive me. I realize that publicly requesting a Medicus means that your power will be questioned on both sides."

"My power is at its fullest, Hermione," Voldemort murmured, his voice turning cold. "It is not because of my power that I need a Medicus."

Her back stiffened, and their eyes warred once again.

"I suppose," she finally said in compromise, "that I will know after the binding. I just... are you comfortable with this?"

"Are you?" he said.

She did not react, although her heart skipped a beat. Without a word, she raised her palm before her. Voldemort knew what she wanted him to do, and he met her palm with his. They repeated the action with their other hands, and although he could feel the tremors through her hands, he did not break the silence between them that was suddenly filled with something profound, larger than the both of them.

She focused on the press of his hands, on the slow intertwining of their fingers until their hands locked.

She never knew exactly from where the magic came, somewhere in the center of her mind and the core of her abdomen, a tight knot of energy that unthreaded through her hands and into Voldemort's body. His hands clenched against hers, and his eyes shot open.

_Stay still_, she whispered in her mind, and the words shivered around them.

The sensation of being herself, holding onto his hands so tightly as she gasped for breath, as she also was in him, feeling her hands grasping his, feeling him struggling to breathe as much as she was, was something she could never have explained. Sweat began to form in small beads along their foreheads. Every movement of their bodies seemed to magnify in their ears. Their surroundings disappeared as the Medicus magic encircled them in a shell of light, sheathing them into strange shadows.

She felt like she could see inside him and feel him as herself at the same time, and she felt his power... such power as she never imagined... power that could crack the world if it chose. She felt the ensnaring web of his mind, the even rhythm of his life as it pulsed through his body.

But she also felt other elements of his body, parts of him that weren't exactly human, parts of him that were unrecognizable to her. Spells and transfigurations that were like a second body within the first - or rather like the first within the second with slight incongruence between the other. It was in this second body that she felt something wrong, like a gaping, rotting cavity in a tooth that bored into the gum. This was important, useful, but not her purpose.

She could feel her own body fall forward until their forearms pressed together with her head leaning against their fists. Although she seemed to be completely within him and herself at the same time, she had a feeling that although he could feel her in him, he could not enter her like she did. He was there, though, his presence gentle within her mind, sliding through her thoughts, her past, her mantras, her dreams and nightmares.

There... his own stretch of knotted energy - his spine of the intangible magic within all sentient creatures of the wizarding world.

She dived in.

She was not sure, but she thought that they both screamed.

And it was over.

She was back in her body, and he in his, although they sensed the thread of connection, as though their blood moved in the same rhythm or their breathing was syncopated. Her breath whistled through her starving lungs, and she collapsed to the ground.

Voldemort knelt down, their hands still clenched together, but he was more cautious than he might have been before. He, too, was weakened from holding her inside of him, from such an invasion of even his magic, but clearly, the effort was hers alone.

"I'll l-live," Hermione whispered, her eyes closed and face white as a sheet, shining with sweat. "G-go a-a-away."

He pulled back, but he was caught by her fingers still curled around his hands.

"Let go," he said. "I can't leave unless you let go."

Their hands creaked as they forced their tense fingers to release each other.

Voldemort stood up quickly, looking down at the prone form of his Medicus. _His Medicus_.

"Go," she whispered again.

"You will come to the dinner?" It was no longer an order, but a question now. A concern. For _his Medicus_.

"I'll come," she said. "Go."

He left quickly to his own chambers, just one door down the corridor. Next to hers. He sat on his bed, and he waited.

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	4. Chapter Four

**Title:** Ascent (04)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Medicus Carmen Bellatrix  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** Next week, I'll be doing exams on Friday evening and Saturday morning, and I have another exam for which to study that is on Monday. So there will be no Ascent chapter next week. However, once summer starts, it should be pretty regular. There will be a few vacations in July, but other than that, things should be fine. 

**Chapter 4**

She thought she fell asleep, but perhaps she didn't. There was something there in her mind during that indeterminable time... something alive, full of energy and power, something that shook with excitement. Something that may not have been entirely her. Hermione thought she could see herself there on the floor, curled in fetal position, limp with wide, glassy eyes. She could have been dead were it not for the slow, even rise and fall of her stomach and the tension trembling of her hands where she grasped Voldemort's so tightly.

She blinked, twitched, her body sore from physical exertion and exhaustion of her magical energy. Her back hurt, but she knew the cause of that pain well enough. The six points of the Medicus, six small gray circles connected by seven lines were magically drawn on her back, and they would remain there until the end of her service. She rolled her shoulders tenderly, working away their sting.

After the light in her room submitted to magical means, Hermione rolled to her stomach and pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Every inch of her protested, but she really did not mind that sort of pain. Beyond those aches, a fire of satisfaction sang through her, the euphoria some of the other Medicus with permanent bindings spoke of - that thread to another person, the ecstasy of completion, of belonging and having.

Somehow, she found the strength to stand, and when she did, she could not help but smile, even giggle. Who cared about Voldemort? Right now she was on the most delicious high, no matter how dark it was, and she wrapped her arms around her waist as she walked to the lavatory. She smiled more widely at the bathroom identical to Voldemort's in everything except color. She burst sporadically into giggles all through her bath, but as the hot water soothed her shaking body, what she had done and what it meant began to hit her. The glittering light in her eyes dimmed as the hot sun of the Dark Arts stirred within her. She pushed them down, pure fear twisting her belly.

That had been the first thing addressed after she was taken on as a Medicus apprentice - her burgeoning darkness that stemmed from extensive study within the Dark Arts coupled with her unique experiences.

_Marilyn stared down at the little girl-woman who stared at her hands, her legs pressed tightly together and her shoulders hunched over. Marilyn might have been disgusted at the girl's lack of confidence had she not known the extreme circumstances behind Hermione's unusual_ _behavior - that, and Hermione was completely naked, which must have stimulated too many awful __memories._

_Shannon approached her from behind and gave Hermione her robes back. Hermione __gratefully __took them into her hands and stood to dress._

_"We apologize for the intricacies of the apprenticeship ceremony," Shannon said. "I'm afraid every Medicus has to be... evaluated, body and mind."_

_"I understand," Hermione said quietly. "I'm just a little shaken."_

_"There _is_ one matter that came up during the evaluation," Marilyn said as Hermione slid her arms into the sleeves of her robes. "You are officially a Medicus-in-training, but we have one concern for something we saw in your magic that might become a full complication later in your training and in your work."_

_"It's your Dark Arts knowledge, Hermione," Shannon said. Hermione's head jerked up, eyes wide and a little angry.__ "Yes, that. They... it's more than knowledge, Hermione."_

_"They take over__. They're a semi-sentient entity that latches to those who use it, like a virus or an infection, something like a parasite__," Hermione replied. "The Dark Lord told me."_

_"Then you know that all that you've learned can be extremely dangerous," Shannon said. __"Especially if you dwell on them too long. They are difficult to resist, I know."_

_"Do you know?" Hermione asked, slipping her wand into her sleeve and facing Shannon. "Do you honestly have any idea? Because I thought I did until Lord Voldemort really taught me what it meant. I wouldn't have believed him had I not felt the truth of it.__ But I do, I feel it all the time now._

_"There is a reason why Shannon__ was chosen as__ your mentor, Hermione__. Remus had a good idea of what you needed__," Marilyn said. "She has worked with the Dark Arts and those under their influence before__, including Remus for a few months_

_The Dark Arts__ cannot be tamed," Shannon said quietly. "But they can be shackled. I will help you learn. It's a hard road there, and it's hard to maintain the barriers you create, but I'm confident that you can do it. I am truly confident of your extensive abilities, Hermione,__ I'm not just say__ing it to make you feel better. W__e're going to fight this because it's something that should be fought. Do you want to try?"_

_Hermione felt her left forearm brush against the stiffness of her wand, and she nodded silently._

They did not appreciate being reigned back, but Shannon had taught her well, and they quieted again. She closed her eyes, pressed her face against the edge of the bath.

_Thin fingers brushed gently against her cheeks, dribbling the warm bath water over her flushed face so that the purity mingled with the salt of her tears._

She roughly shoved the memory away, but the comfort of it suffused her body with peace nonetheless.

"Why does my life have to be so damn complicated?" she muttered before stepping out of the bath.

She was late to the dinner, but Voldemort was not surprised or angry. She did not make an entrance, simply slid into the room and took her place to the right of Voldemort at the head of the table. He had strategically placed her next to Carmen rather than any of his other Death Eaters, who smiled at her and pulled the chair back for her to sit. She did not smile back, but Carmen took the slight in stride - he did not expect her to like him, but he liked her. Whenever he and Voldemort had their late-night dinners or chess games, the subject invariably turned to her. Voldemort had remarked that Carmen was smitten with her. Carmen had been silent on that point.

Hermione could feel the stares, particularly from some of the more intense Death Eaters... and Wormtail, of course, but he was on the other end of the table, and she could ignore him easily enough. She heard the squeal of a woman, the wet sound of kisses, but she did not look.

Carmen served her the meal, the clatter of silverware allowing the others to continue their meal, and as he reached for one of the bowls, Hermione caught the flash of the Dark Mark.

"You're a Death Eater now?" she asked quietly.

Carmen paused for a moment before continuing his service. "One of my neighbors caught me in illegal activities with known Death Eaters. With the polarization of the wizarding world, I had few choices - the Dark Lord has assured me that my status with him has not changed, and he has given me no reason to believe any differently."

Voldemort watched Carmen as he ate, and Hermione knew that there was a new tension between them now that Carmen had become one of his servants.

"I am devoted to him, lady," Carmen murmured gently. "It changes nothing."

"Carmen is ashamed of the Mark," hissed the woman across from Hermione. "He is ashamed of belonging to our lord."

"I am not ashamed, Bellatrix," Carmen said.

"Merely uneasy," Voldemort interrupted. "Your loyalty is unwavering, but you are independent. Still, you had no place with the Black Dogs, and the Cat's Paws are not for you. You were truly one of my Death Eaters before you took my Mark. Because I allow you a certain degree of candor does not mean that you are disrespectful or disloyal."

Hermione tasted an old conflict.

"And you, Hermione? Are you ashamed to belong to our lord?"

The question came from the man sitting next to Bellatrix, swarthy, unobtrusive, and quiet, she could not remember him speaking when she was in a room.

"She does not belong to me," Voldemort said quietly. "Not anymore."

There was a significant silence along the table.

Hermione glanced at the Dark Lord, who was still eating. It was an odd thing to watch him do, like watching him sleep in a bed. She felt his restraint in her stomach, the contradiction of what she was and what she used to be, the effort to reconcile the two and respect her new position.

"That's not entirely correct," Hermione replied slowly. She took her first bite of the meat, forcing herself to remain calm and collected. Her Dark Mark hummed as Voldemort's eyes flit to hers. "There is a reason why I will always be referred to as _your_ Medicus. However, you are _my_ client, so I suppose it goes both ways."

"Then the question stands," the man next to Bellatrix said. Hermione felt uncomfortable under his gaze - not the way she felt uncomfortable with Lucius and Wormtail, but like she felt when Snape looked at her for too long, or the Dark Lord himself.

Bellatrix smiled, and the smile transformed her face into something indescribably wicked; Hermione realized that the man beside her was her husband, Rodolphus Lestrange. Knowing the history of the Lestranges, Hermione felt it best to answer - especially if she was going to be with these Death Eaters for the rest of her life or the Dark Lord's.

_You don't have to hide anymore, Hermione. You don't have to beg and kiss their boots and plead for the torture to stop. If you _are_ his, you aren't his like you were before._

The words were hers and not hers. There was a decided tinge of the Dark Lord there, but the rest was her. She wondered if her thoughts would always be like this now - her own with him in the background, the memory of him, the strength of his will behind his eyes, the feeling of him around her when she delved deep into his magic. Or whether he had always been there. It scared her.

_He is waiting._

These words were his, and Hermione saw him hide the curve of his mouth.

"Not like this. No, I'm not ashamed to be what I am and do what I am supposed to do for him," Hermione said, looking at her plate, then at Rodolphus. "Before, yes. But that isn't much of a surprise, I guess."

"I suppose not," Rodolphus replied. "However, I know you are not ashamed of being a Medicus. None of them are. But are you ashamed to be a Medicus for our lord?"

Hermione put her fork onto her plate and looked at Rodolphus straight in the eye. "I know what you're really asking." She pushed her chair back and stood up. "It's been eight years, eight whole years. I decided early after my freedom to be nonpartisan, and even if in my heart and head I don't want to be simply because of the blind chance I fell in with Harry, I gave my oath when I became a Medicus. In my actions, I will be every bit of the full Medicus that is expected of me. This means that I hate you, I hate him, and I hate everyone in this room as much as you hate me for who I am and what I was, but I cannot do a fucking thing about it. This means that I am completely bound to help your lord with his health, his well-being, everything but the war. And if you dare to keep me from what I am bound to do - namely, being your lord's Medicus - if you even touch a hair on my head, I won't wait for the Medicus Order to hear about it, I'll decimate your ranks myself."

She heard a snort to her right. "You know, you should not keep all your emotions locked up inside. You should let them out every once in a while," Carmen said. "Have some fruit."

"You still haven't answered my questions," Rodolphus said. "You answered about yourself."

"I wasn't finished," Hermione said, sitting down at Carmen's coaxing. Mantras ran through her head, and she managed to relax again. "It's difficult for me to be here. It would be difficult for anyone spat upon, licked, kicked, tortured, and basically forced into bed with anyone willing to take me. However... I have a duty here now. You'll never see me in chains, and for that alone, I will be more than accommodating for your lord. The newspaper slandered me and I received enough insults from the wizarding world that I could not care less what they say about me. They called me a Death Eater's whore then, they're going to call me a Death Eater's whore now. And I sincerely don't give a damn. I'm not ashamed of being his Medicus, to finally get to the point of the question. It is a great honor to be selected by the Oracle for a permanent contract, and although this was the last place I wanted to come back to, I'm not running, am I?"

She took a bite of the apple slice that Carmen offered without looking at it or even tasting it.

"Spirited lady," Carmen muttered, looking pointedly at the Dark Lord, "and opinionated. Just what you need. The Oracle chose well."

Voldemort laughed. He actually laughed, and there were a few other snickers along the table from people trying to hold back their mirth at the image of the diminutive witch "decimating their ranks," especially when juxtaposed with the image of Hermione as the little pet of the Dark Lord. As more and more of them could not restrain themselves, the room swelled with laughter.

Hermione froze, looking at the looseness of the Death Eaters at the table, a looseness that she never expected to come from servants always in fear of a Cruciatus curse or one of its derivatives that Voldemort had created.

"There is more to us than torture," Carmen whispered in her ear. "You are allowed to laugh. And well said, lady."

"Carmen, are you flirting with my Medicus?" Voldemort asked.

"Shamelessly," Carmen said, touching her hair gently before floating aside. "Because, of course, I'm smitten with her, as you've said."

"Sarah's going to be jealous," Macnair said.

"If she loves me with all of my flaws and faults, I don't think a simple attraction to a beautiful young lady would arouse her ire," Carmen said, grinning. "And I would not complain if her ire was... aroused."

Hermione paled.

"I'll be right back," she muttered. She pushed her chair back and began to leave the table, but she hesitated half-standing. Slowly, she sat back down.

"Good girl," Voldemort murmured, his fingers brushing the fabric over her Dark Mark. It hummed under his touch.

She jerked her arm away, but she did not protest. He was baiting her - she would not take his bait.

"I have to start somewhere," she said.

"And you did well."

His praise should not have made her feel this way.

When Hermione finally excused herself, genuinely wishing to retire for the night, she was stopped in the corridor by Bellatrix.

"Mudblood," she hissed.

Hermione whirled around only to see that Bellatrix said it to get her attention.

"Medicus," Hermione corrected her coolly.

"I would not risk the wrath of my lord and say otherwise," Bellatrix said just as coolly.

"What do you want?"

"A few words," Bellatrix replied. She took Hermione's shoulder and led her into a dark, empty room. Magical globes burst to life around them, and Bellatrix released her grip on Hermione. Hermione would not be surprised if there were bruises, but she did not think they were meant as an insult, merely a veiled threat - Hermione did not take offense.

"Mudblood or not," Bellatrix said, "you were called to be my lord's Medicus, and he accepted you. You may be bound by oath, but I want to hear it from your mouth. You will treat the Dark Lord with the respect he deserves. You will cater to his needs. You will... help him with... whatever he needed a Medicus for. His powers have grown, and he has achieved a tenuous immortality that is strengthening with every passing day, but something is clearly wrong if he needs _you_. You will help him."

Hermione looked at Bellatrix. "You're... concerned for him?"

"I was loyal to him even when he was believed to be dead," Bellatrix countered, leaning down so that she and Hermione were eye-to-eye. Hermione could see the intensity in her countenance, intensity that accentuated what was left of her beauty, making Hermione see how beautiful she could have been if she was never imprisoned in Azkaban. "My family was proud of me when I joined the Dark Lord, but I left them for him. I married Rodolphus at his bidding. I was his in every way but his lover. Even if there is weakness within him beyond his power, I will follow him until the end, unlike some of the other Death Eaters. It is for them and how they might react to my lord requiring a Medicus that I am concerned."

"As his Medicus, I am not allowed to harm him and he is not allowed to harm me - at least with the intent to harm," Hermione explained. "I cannot keep him from the blows of politics and power struggle, but when he comes to me, I can cure him, if that is what you wanted to know."

"It isn't," Bellatrix snarled, snatching Hermione's chin and digging her nails in slightly. "I'm asking whether you are willing to give my lord what he _needs_... and possibly what he _wants_. Are you willing to do more than what is _required_ of you?"

Hermione brought her left hand to Bellatrix's, extricating herself from the woman's hold. "You are very close to being cursed - and you wouldn't be allowed to curse back, Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Answer my question," Bellatrix snapped, wrapping her fingers firmly around Hermione's wrist and baring her forearm to show the Dark Mark. "Are you willing?"

Hermione realized she was trembling with fear and anger and confusion. Bellatrix was insane, but Hermione had seen her with a wand before in the middle of the audience chamber. She, Rodolphus, and Rabastan were talented in the art of physical torture, worse when Macnair joined them with his knives, and she knew that Bellatrix would not hesitate to kill her slowly, consequences be damned.

"Willing and waiting," Hermione whispered. "I may not like it, but I don't do anything by halves. I will make every effort to be the Dark Lord's true Medicus. After all, it was what I was _called_ to do. You can let go of me."

That wicked light in her eyes gleamed again as Bellatrix smiled like a cat, smooth as butter and honey. Quick as lightning, Bellatrix brought Hermione's forearm to her mouth and ran her tongue along the Mark before releasing her. Hermione took a quick step back.

"You're right to be afraid, Hermione," Bellatrix said. "But my lord does not want you harmed. So I will not harm you." She laughed deep in her throat before kissing Hermione on the forehead and backing out of the room, her hooded eyes practically dancing. She drank in Hermione's discomfort and disquiet, her eyes not leaving her face until she reached the corridor.

"Bella is my prize," Voldemort said from the shadows. Hermione jumped and turned to face his amusement. "One of my favorites among all my followers. Remarkably effective in whatever endeavor crosses her mind, quite creative."

"I've seen," Hermione replied.

"I heard your answer," Voldemort said.

Hermione refused to look away.

"Do you hate me as much as you say?" Voldemort asked, stepping out of the shadows. "Think carefully, Hermione. Your words are vehement, and you carry resentment, but I feel no hatred in you. I have felt it only once, right before you broke before the contorted bodies of your parents. Never before and never after. Fear, loathing, fury, but never hatred."

Hermione did not answer. She could not think of anything to say.

Voldemort lifted his chin at the lack of response, pleased.

Hermione searched for something, anything to take the topic off of what she wanted so desperately to avoid.

_"If it's no different from any other cloak, then why do you persist in keeping it when you have a cloak of your own rather than his?"_

"Lord Voldemort..." she began. Voldemort folded his arms, waiting for her question. "Why did you need me?"

Hermione watched his face darken. His eyes narrowed to slits of crimson, and she sensed a strange, furious urgency that did not belong to her - she could feel what he was feeling through their connection. The silver-white thread between them vibrated as though it had been stroked by his frustration. She found herself inadvertently walking toward him, reaching for him, for something. Before she could reach him, he swept around her, avoiding the confrontation between a Medicus and her client. Hermione quickly pulled back her hand, and the haze of her oath cleared.

"We will speak of it tomorrow morning. Not now," Voldemort said, not looking at her, but striding to the door.

"Lord Voldemort..."

"Not _now_," he snapped, whirling on her, eyes blazing. "You've established yourself as my Medicus with the binding and your speech in the dining room, but now is not the time for diagnosis." He forced his voice back to a more polite, if colder, tone. "You must be exhausted, Medicus, you should go to your chambers and prepare for tomorrow's work. And there will be work to occupy your time, I can assure you."

And he left the room in a swirl of robe and cloak that would have made Severus proud.

Read? Review!

**Author notes:** Tell me what you thought.


	5. Chapter Five

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**Title:** Ascent (05)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** **Category:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Carmen Wormtail Medicus  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** Okay, I'm out of school, which means I can get back on a normal schedule and not be quite as bitchy. I still have to work (writing, what horrible work), but Friday evenings and Saturdays are free.

**Chapter 5**

"Take off your robes, please," Hermione said.

"Excuse me?"

"Do not make me say it again, Lord Voldemort."

Voldemort raised an eyebrow, the coldness he presented when she first came in warming enough to show his amusement. She was making a concerted effort to look at him in the eye like a good professional, as any Healer should. He caught her wrist lightly. She jerked away, startled.

"Don't... not that way," Hermione corrected, looking down once before squaring her shoulders and sitting down on the edge of the bed with him. She had been dreading this since she woke up this morning, but she would be damned if she would run now. Not that she could, not after her oaths and bindings.

_"When you find yourself thinking of blood, look to the sun. Or the moon. Whichever you are happier with. The darkness wants you, but you will conquer it. Think about your goal, Hermione, and what it meant when you first decided to become a Medicus. Think about your goal."_

Voldemort watched the veneer of Medicus coat her countenance, a sort of glassiness along the edges of her irises. "Do not interpret this as anything more than the need to touch you in order to have better readings. I'll be entering into you, but it will not be nearly as invasive as the binding ceremony. I know what to look for."

"Wouldn't a physical exam be more appropriate?" Voldemort murmured.

"Why? What hurts?" Hermione asked, skeptical. Voldemort permitted her a wry curve of his mouth before standing and removing his outer robes, setting them on the bed to his other side, then his remaining robes, leaving him only in his trousers, which he left on.

Hermione looked away for a moment, eyes closed, swallowing hard. A brush of his hand on her shoulder made her lift a hand for his patience. Finally, she took a deep breath and turned back around. Voldemort smothered a low laugh of appreciation as her eyes traveled over his white chest in irrepressible curiosity, distracted by its pure whiteness, his lean lines. Like the smooth curves of his skull and the ropy strength of his wrists and neck, the nakedness of his torso revealed how pale and thin he was, like a pole, the pronouncement of his ribs and the hollow of his abdomen made all the more prominent by his white skin. Something within Hermione's stomach turned, but she swallowed again and forced her eyes on his face. She noted his pleasure at her discomfort, and she felt a prick of anger.

"I saw something interesting while I was inside you for the binding. I won't have to go all the way in," she explained, ignoring his expression. "Do _you_ have an idea of what's ailing you?"

"A few," he answered shortly. His receptivity closed again.

Hermione's forehead furrowed. "What do you think?"

"Tell me what you find, and I will tell you if it is what I postulate," he replied.

"My... Lord Voldemort, it would help if..."

"Show your mettle, Medicus," Voldemort snapped.

"Why does it bother you so much?" Hermione said. "Surely you know some way..."

"I needed a Medicus, didn't I? I required a Medicus; I am paying you at high expense. Do what you must." Voldemort sat back on the edge of the bed, but unlike Hermione when she was self-conscious, Voldemort faced her, eyes burning with intensity.

It occurred to her why he was so sensitive about his condition and decided not to speak of his reticence at this point. At the slight acquiescence between both of them, despite the obvious charging of the air, Voldemort took her wrist again and brought her hand to his shoulder. She appreciated that he did not bring her to his chest. She was not sure if she could prevent herself from trembling if he had.

Her fingers slid over the shoulder and grasped tightly. She focused on the hollow along his collarbone, and suddenly, she was seeing herself and him, mostly him, with the odd juxtaposition of bodies, one human, and the other...

In a sort of detached way, she felt herself push him so that he was flat on his back. She could see him better this way, with her consciousness floating above him. Slowly, she sank down, merging the two bodies into three. Her physical body was shivering, skin on her arms and legs texturing into goose bumps, but it felt like her body was millions of miles away here inside Voldemort, different in every way from when she had bound their magic together. She felt less like an alien and more comfortable in a body that already had part of her inside of it. She could feel the swirl of Voldemort's thoughts, but she determinedly avoided them, as much for her own sake as for his.

But although she felt at home, there was something distinctly wrong, something that jarred within her, a disease, a tapeworm, something... the rotting place she had found before in his second body - the transfigured and transformed body consisting of all the spells cast to make him appear as he was as well as to shift his magical core and protect it, augment it, as well as to bolster his immortality spells and potions. It was such an intricate interweaving of magic, both Light and Dark, all practical to his purpose, that Hermione almost lost herself as she followed the threads to where they frayed and turned moldy and rotten and leprous. She prodded the place gently, estimating that it began somewhere beneath the inverted V of his ribs, around his diaphragm.

Not in his physical body, per se. His magic, while focused in the core, surrounded his body like an aura - the aura was thick around his transfigured body, and although the human part of his was given more than a fair share, his aura around the transfigured body outshined anything else. Hermione knew that some wizards could make their auras felt even if they could not be seen, especially when they were angry, but... this much power was almost ridiculous when she compared it to the average power she worked with. The little girl she had been with possessed a greater than average aura, possibly because she lost her eyesight, and Hermione knew that she had a great deal herself, much more than she actually used. But Voldemort...

How did he get all that power and how did he manage to contain it?

It was something she needed to ask later, but now, that hole, that cavity. She thought she might know what it was. The cases were rare, but the symptom was unmistakable. After feeling for more cavities or weak spots where the rotting was beginning to take hold, she withdrew, colliding with her body in a jerk that made her arch her back before doubling over.

Voldemort sat up, shaken again from having something strange inside his body and giving it free reign. He had clenched his fists into the comforter to restrain himself from shoving her from him. He brought his hand to the place under his ribs where he had half-felt her prodding, and he thought she knew what was happening to him.

"I thought that might be the problem when I first saw it during the binding ceremony," Hermione said into her knees. "Transfiguration decay. It's starting near your magical core, toward the front of your body, focused on your aura for now. There are a few weak spots near your head and your... groin as well as at the palms of your hands, although there are no decay cavities in those places yet. I do suspect, Lord Voldemort, that they will follow and that the decay runs deeper than I felt while I was inside of you. However, I'm... tired... it's tiring. And there is still time."

"Do you need anything?" Voldemort asked, retrieving his wand from his robes before dressing again. She turned her head to look at him when he was finished, her head still resting against her knees.

"Ice water would be nice," she replied.

"You're shivering."

"It will pass."

He conjured a cup of water for her, and she took it with weak hands. The coolness of the water eventually dampened the bright red of her cheeks, and she was able to sit up.

"Is it always so draining?" Voldemort asked, taking the cup back and banishing it back into thin air.

"Always?" Hermione replied, giving a small, coughing laugh. "I've only done it a few times. I've heard it is easier with practice. Don't forget you've been given a Medicus without much experience."

"Of course," Voldemort said.

"Did you suspect transfiguration decay?"

"Among other things."

"I've never seen or read anything like the decay you have," Hermione mused. "But all your transfigurations and transformations, the doubling of your selves, the immortality spells, the magic you have naturally, it all has to connect somehow. Some sort of parasitic relationship, perhaps, feeding off of all your magic. But the little worm-like manifestations of your decay thinly coat your entire aura, weak spots or not. It is... dangerous, to say the least. Did you never take any precautions?"

Voldemort sighed impatiently. "I took precautions, most over twenty years ago, but none have been successful or were stripped from me after the Killing Curse rebounded upon me. The extent of my transformations is unprecedented to my knowledge. I've read more relevant works on the subject than you have, and there is no cure - the disease is too rare."

Hermione clenched her jaw in frustration. "As soon as you can, could you give me the relevant works, and I will look through them?"

"Do you think you might find something I haven't?" Voldemort asked, sneering slightly.

"Your specialty is destruction and your own glorification. Mine is to heal. From two different perspectives, there will be different interpretations. Of course I will find something that you haven't. Whether what I find will help you is another question," Hermione said. "Do not doubt my methods, Lord Voldemort. I may not be the most experienced Medicus, but I know procedure and how to cover all options open to me."

"And those closed to you?"

"I'm persuasive when I want to be," Hermione said. "And I don't even have to perform fellatio. Can you walk?"

"Can you?"

"Not yet."

"I can stand. I recover quickly," Voldemort said.

Hermione tried to stand, holding the bed post for leverage. "That will make my job easier." The room swayed, but she managed to stay upright. "I need to continue setting up my laboratory." She tried to walk to the door. His hands caught her upper arms as she swayed to the side.

"Why are you...?"

"Things change, Hermione," Voldemort murmured near her ear, making her wrench away and fall to the floor. She twisted around, eyes wide and heart beating quickly from... just from his voice. "Take advantage of my need to make you comfortable and keep you from being hurt. Unless you would... like me to hurt you, break you again. If that is what my Medicus needs to function properly, I would not deny her that. I remember your motivation when you were chained to the bed or the laboratory desk."

Hermione found herself caught in his eyes again, caught in the snare of his Legilimency, and her Dark Mark hummed. Somehow, she found the strength to blink and turn her head away.

"Things I will require," Hermione said, hard and cold, "include a door between our rooms. After I enter your body, it would be better for me to have easier access to my own chambers rather than go through the corridor. Also, I will need to be able to leave this fortress, which means that somehow, I will need to know how to Apparate back and forth. I will need the books that you have already read regarding your condition. I will require a certain amount of time to myself during the day to walk freely along your grounds and meditate without being harassed by your followers, or you will find yourself with less useful followers. There are other things: tell me when something is bothering you. I can usually sense it if I reach out, but I, understandably, am less willing to read your emotions, and it is possible I might miss something. Any of my previous requests can be ignored if there is an emergency. These merging sessions will not happen often, only if I need to. But if I need to, make time for it."

Voldemort crossed his arms over his chest. "I have a few concessions and stipulations. The door will be conjured immediately. When you leave this fortress, you will leave with an attendant. When the younger Death Eaters return, one of them will be assigned for your protection, but until then... usually this is Wormtail's work, but I think Macnair would be better suited. He will Apparate you wherever you need to go. If he is unavailable, Wormtail will have to escort you. The knowledge of the location of this fortress is unnecessary for Apparition - you have a Mark, you can find it. Every time you leave, you need to inform me of where you will be going or who you will be visiting. I will not ask for specifics, per the laws of the Medicus Order, if the specifics would compromise the position of the Order or the Ministry, as delicious as infiltration that way would be. Should you be going to a place where a Death Eater is strictly unwelcome, which does _not_ include public areas such as Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, or even Muggle cities, you may go unaccompanied. Private residences and hidden headquarters, those you may go to alone. You may read my emotions whenever you wish, but I want to feel you when you do. Do not read my mind surreptitiously. Are we agreed?"

"Thus far," Hermione replied.

"Do you need help again?"

"I can stand on my own. Now is a good time to conjure a door." Hermione busied herself with crawling to her knees and putting her weight on her legs. She stumbled forward. She looked up at Voldemort, who was leaning on the wall next to the door that he made, watching her.

Slowly, she gathered herself together and stood, knees and thighs shaking. She staggered to the door and grasped the knob, opening it into her bathroom.

Before closing the door, she managed to say, "Thank you."

Voldemort watched her from the window in her room. She was walking across the grounds, her eyes half closed, her hands clenching and unclenching in the air. A brush of a thought in her Mark, and he knew she was only tense, not angry. Her muscles seemed to thrum with anxiety. He pulled back, tongue running along the back of his teeth in introspection.

"My lord," Carmen said behind him. "Forgive the intrusion. I thought I might find you here."

"Of course," Voldemort replied. "What did you need?"

"You have no escort for her? Is she safe on her own?" Carmen asked, floating so that he hovered next to the Dark Lord, looking over the field to where Hermione was taking her walk.

"Why do you think I am watching her now? She does not need an escort everywhere she goes. If she can't learn how to defend herself from my followers should they approach her. She does have that right now." His voice drifted to a slight whisper as his thoughts turned again to his new Medicus. She was walking a little stiffly. Her legs must still be weak or sore.

"This is... unexpected, isn't it?" Carmen said, "I've never seen you so careful around someone."

"You know the Medicus Order, Carmen," Voldemort said shortly. "I have every reason to be cautious, and she has every reason to exploit every loophole in the Medicus laws, if there are any."

"You don't have control, and that frightens you."

"You never know when to keep your high-powered intuition to yourself, do you?"

"Old people speak their mind," Carmen replied. "And someone needs to tell you what you hide. I know where you stand on that Potter boy, and on Albus, but... the lady... everything has changed."

"Had she come to me on her hands and knees, pleading for sanctuary, I would have had less respect for her, but she would have obeyed me," Voldemort murmured. "I would have tested the shatters of her will for any healing and ripped it open again before initiating her as a Death Eater rather than my pet. But this..."

"She's young still," Carmen said, leaning back on his carpet. "And being a Medicus does not stop you from breaking her as long as you do not physically harm her."

"I want someone lucid to be curing me, Carmen."

Carmen gave a rasping laugh. "So you favor being practical over your usual methods. It is commendable."

"What is wrong with my usual methods, pray tell?"

Carmen hid a smile. "You do tend to show your... temper. It's very... smooth. You have great finesse when you lose your temper, but... it is part of the reason you've lost the Potter boy so many times."

Voldemort's eyes left Hermione to favor Carmen with a glare. "If you had told me this fifteen years ago, all my problems would have been solved. Potter and Dumbledore would be in the ground, the Order in the dungeons, and Hermione in the Harem, and I wouldn't know half the names I know now. I could be ruling the world and instead I compromise it with my temper, of all things."

"You could just tell me to be quiet."

"But then I would miss the catharsis of sarcasm," Voldemort replied, turning back to Hermione.

"You missed _her_."

"Careful, Carmen."

"For Merlin's sake, man, you _want _her. You've wanted her since she was still yours. It doesn't hurt to admit these things. Just..."

Voldemort whipped around, his forearm catching Carmen in the chest and pushing him from the flying carpet onto the floor.

"_Crucio_," he hissed, eyes narrowed to bloody lines, slit nostrils flaring in fury. Carmen did not scream, but pain dug into every groove of his leathered face and his eyes rolled back.

Voldemort lifted the curse, the slightly quickened rise and fall of his chest the only sign of his anger now.

"Not only are you most emphatically incorrect about Hermione," Voldemort said, "you have overstepped your boundaries, Carmen. You forget..."

"...my place," Carmen whispered, finishing the sentence. He summoned his flying carpet to him with a crook of his finger. Voldemort thought he saw the thin sheen of tears and exhaustion in the old man's eyes as Carmen rolled onto his carpet. "I will not bother you anymore, my lord," he said as he floated out of the room.

Voldemort turned back to Hermione.

Her legs were beginning to shake again, and her head swam with thoughts, none of which grounded itself long enough for her to tell exactly what it was: bits of decay, red eyes, mantras, glass, chains, black robes, Grimmauld Place, _Hogwarts, A History_, smiles, green eyes, freckles, dementors, midnight blue robes. The grounds here were different than the serenity of the fields around the Medicus buildings. The forest surrounding the fortress was forbidding, even with the sun peeking through the gray clouds. Groaning and creaking, whispering. There was no lake here, just the dark, jutting behemoth of the fortress. The walk was less relaxing here, but she supposed she would have to get used to it.

Bending slightly, she sat on the grass, leaning back on her hands and staring away from the fortress, into the swirl of trees. Looking there seemed simpler.

Her stomach still roiled, and among the swarm of thoughts, visions of how he looked when he removed his robes, the feel of his breath against her ear, kept returning to her mind.

She shivered, drawing her cloak tighter around her and casting a Warming Charm.

"He wasn't the only one who waited for you, you know," Wormtail said.

"I'll bet you were frustrated when he let me go," Hermione replied, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"I've had a bit more practice."

"You aren't going to touch me again."

"I also have a little more initiative. I've been taught well."

"Go fulfill your life debt to Harry already."

She knew he was standing a good distance away from her, but she could feel his presence as keenly as if he was right behind her.

"You find me despicable," he said.

"You may have scarred me for life."

"You could have enjoyed it. I wanted you to."

"Your concept of right and wrong is completely skewed, isn't it?" Hermione replied. She twisted around to see Wormtail fidgeting. "Find another girl."

"I could be of help to you," Wormtail said. "You don't have to do anything. Just let me... I don't know. Be with you, I guess."

"Being with you doesn't include your bed, does it?"

"Not if you don't want it to," he said softly. "I'm not allowed to touch you now, I know that well enough. All of us do."

Hermione looked over his contrite figure, his naturally down-turned eyes and pleading face. Desperate. "Leave me alone, Wormtail." She hesitated. "Please."

"If you are going to be helping the Dark Lord, you'll need to accept us, too."

"I'll address that obstacle when I come to it. Now, please, Wormtail," Hermione said, speaking more quickly, more... desperately, "leave me alone."

There was silence.

"I did miss you, Hermione," he whispered. She heard his boots crush the grass as he walked back up to the fortress.

The tightness in her shoulders and back loosened, and she stood up, looking back to where Wormtail disappeared through the door. Movement caught her eyes, and they darted to the side, to what she thought might be her window if it wasn't charmed.

She did not see anyone.

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**Author notes:** Tell me what you thought. Rereading this, I still get the idea that something is missing. I also felt that some things and certain turns of phrases imply something not necessarily intended. :) Hope you enjoyed it!

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	6. Chapter Six

**Title:** Ascent (06)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** **Category:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Dark Arts Medicus  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** Take it! 

**Chapter 6**

She had never really looked at the fortress before. Of course, before she was always on the inside, shackled to something and divested of a wand and clothing. The only time she had seen it before was during the initiation, but it was difficult to see such a behemoth of a building in the dark of night.

Hermione was walking again, enjoying the chill of the morning and the crunch of snow under her feet from the night's snowfall. It would melt quickly and spring was nigh upon them, so she wanted to enjoy it while it lasted. She took a long look at the fortress itself rather than the wide, wild forest around it. It took had its own sort of uncivilized aura, as though it had a menace that was just the building rather than the inhabitants. Hermione could not quite decide if it harkened back to the grotesque grandeur of the old cathedrals or whether it had the sort of stateliness and clean lines of a Greek temple. She looked at it one way and it loomed over her - another way transformed it into something almost welcoming in comparison to the unpredictability of the woods. Then again, all evil is easier to look at in the light.

_And I guess it's home for the rest of my life_, she thought with a wry smile. It was her second real look at the fortress, and somehow it was less frightening to her, even in the eerie blue and orange glow that reflected from the snow in the reaching heat of the rising sun.

Still... the windows still felt like eyes, so many eyes that wanted her either inside in its warm maw or away, just away. She found herself staring at it, caught between the fortress and the forest, hands tucked into her cloak, face pink, wishing she had grown her hair out for winter, frizziness be damned. Her breath froze outside of her mouth in tiny clouds that dispersed as quickly as they came, blurring the picture of the fortress for a second or two as she watched it crouch there on the top of the hill.

She heard him before she saw him, and his casual stride betrayed his identity, slow and even in the cold that must bite under his skin unless he had cast a Warming Charm.

"I'm not accustomed to search for people when I want them," Voldemort said. He was not angry or annoyed or amused. His tone was without any sort of emotion, and Hermione recognized it for the hesitation that it was.

"I have a Dark Mark. You could have found me that way," Hermione replied. "I don't like being trapped in a room. But I guess you know that."

They stood there in silence for a minute, and, remarkably, the peace of the early morning remained until the golden line of sunbeams reached from the illuminated fortress to their boots. Hermione squinted in the light and turned to look at the Dark Lord, who was looking back at her as though she was a piece of parchment that needed to be filled. It was an odd kind of look.

"You wanted to see the books I used for my transfiguration spells," Voldemort finally said. "And I have something else to show you."

"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked.

"No," Voldemort said.

He started up the hill again, and Hermione found herself following him before she even realized what she was doing. His entire demeanor seemed closed off, and she hesitated to pull at the threads that connected them to spread the curtains of his almost impenetrable aura. She felt that looking beyond the barrier that Voldemort built around him would be invasive in such a way that he would not realize what she was doing... and that was just wrong somehow, especially with him... although she should have no qualms about it after all he had done, that voice wiggling into her head like a tiny lamprey, like his spirit when he possessed creatures. She should feel no qualms for a little quiet retribution. But she only followed him silently. Hermione could see Shannon's face in the back of her mind, that oh so stern half-smile that warned Hermione that she was regressing back into old, dangerous habits - she faintly heard the shaking of chains behind the insubstantial memory.

The shift from the chill of outside and the warmth of inside caught her body by surprise, and her nose, ears, and fingers began tingling with the sudden change. She liked that feeling - it made her feel alive, and in spite of the so familiar connotations of the objects and furniture about her in the corridors, she grasped tightly to the feeling as she had so many times since first leaving the fortress.

_"There are so many good little things, so many things to ground you in the now. Close your mind around them and don't let go until they start to fade. Then find another. And another. The darkness can be subtle, but the little things are all that anyone really holds onto."_

They passed so many people, more than Hermione would have expected eight years ago, but with the great polarization between the sides, even the slightest supporters for Voldemort had been hurt just as supporters of the Order and the Ministry had been disowned or abused... it went both ways, always both ways, no matter which moral standard was supposed to be followed. It hurt Hermione to watch the wizarding world divide itself, not least because she may have been one of the catalysts for the stronger divide - the weak, the moderate, and the ignorant were the ones who really lost as two grand masters played their terrible strategy game, callously sacrificing pieces who did not even know they were playing.

_"I just wanted to help."_

"Through here," Voldemort said, opening the door to his chambers.

"What is it that you wanted to show me?" Hermione asked. "I still remember the order of the books in your shelves; I know everything in this room... and how."

"Not in my chambers," Voldemort answered, eyes glinting in amusement. "Through my hearth." He reached into a box on his mantle, the simple dark wooden box that Hermione had assumed held Floo powder. Voldemort threw a bit of the bright blue powder into the fire - there was no visual change to the color and movement of the flames. He beckoned Hermione forward.

"The library is through fire," Voldemort explained quietly. "The books you want are there."

He touched her shoulder as she ducked into the hearth, through the fire that was hot but not burning. She stumbled when he let go of her, but she caught her balance only to be staggered by the sight of her first love.

_Merlin, he found my weakness,_ she thought, resisting the urge to smile or shake.

_A heavy tome of hand-bound parchment came to his outstretched hand. He opened it upside-down on his lap so that she could see it. He kept his eyes on her._ _Hermione looked down at the book. Like his smell in the room, Professor Snape's familiar, spidery script sent a pang through her. _

_"You want me to decipher his writings so that you can know what was going on in his head, what kind of mutinous thoughts and actions that he had. You want me to betray the Order, my friends, everything I believed in... for you." _

_"Yes."_

He was standing behind her, and she could feel his eyes watching as she stepped forward, wary of the rattling of chains in her head. Just looking at this library... it would not have anything so tame as _Moste Potente Potions_. Black, leather-bound texts lined the shelves along the walls and in aisles through the room. The library was not large - not like the Hogwarts library or Medicus library - but Hermione would not have been surprised if most of the Dark writings in the world were collected in this one library. Dark magic thickened the air with something like longing, something that pulled, caught her interest. Rustling parchment that smelled musty, ancient, ripe with age, accented with faded spiky writing, grisly illustrations, words and words and words of magic that always seemed to elude her - or she always eluded the words, she was not quite sure which. She could hear the pages whispering to each other, within each other, vibrating with restraint and quivering desire. Her fingers brushed against the spines, the smoothness of leather an old friendly enemy.

Fingers caught her wrist, wrapped tightly around the fragile bones, cold skin against warm pulsing. Hermione blinked and let Voldemort pull her hand back.

"Careful in here," he murmured, leading her away from the shelves and to a round wooden table. There were stacks of books - two hundred would not have been a liberal guess - all whispering with the same seduction. "You are welcome to come to the library when you like, but I would be careful not to stay for too long. Unless, of course, you would like to drown in the Dark Arts while your vulnerability is still raw and new."

She heard the smile in his voice, but she did not look at him.

"You brought me here on purpose," Hermione said, looking over the gilded titles on the spines. The pads of her fingertips danced against them as she read, wanting so much to pick up the book and knowing that it was a dangerous road she was about to follow, more dangerous than being Lord Voldemort's Medicus, more dangerous than searching the Forbidden Forest for ingredients, more dangerous than anything she ever did with Harry and Ron in her school days.

"I brought you here for these books," Voldemort said. "You should have known that you would have to delve back into the Dark magicks if you wanted to help me. That you are impressionable to the Dark arts is incidental, if amusing."

"I don't know what the Oracle was thinking," Hermione muttered as she continued to look over the wall of books. She could not take her eyes off of them. Maroon, navy, black, dark green, all dark, so dark.

_Perhaps that a Dark Medicus would be more use to a Dark Lord than a good one._

The thought brought shivers to her spine, but it did not frighten her as much as she knew it should.

A tome, heavy with knowledge and scaly against her skin, slid into her hands.

"This is my notebook," Voldemort said. "In some of the books, I gloss in the margins like you in the books themselves, but for my own theories and spells, this is what you want to read. The rest are references - you will find casual citations."

Hermione's fingers curled around the sides of the book, grasping tight in something like desperation.

"The other books may be removed from the room, but my notebook stays within either the library, my chambers, or yours," Voldemort said. "Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Hermione replied absentmindedly. Her hands were shaking, not from fear or anxiety but from anticipation for the illicit from which she had held herself for so long. She barely felt the hand at the small of her back that led her to a chair at the table.

"Do you know what some people would do to read this?" Hermione said, caressing the cover of the notebook. "Or what some people would do just to be in this library for five minutes?"

"Oh, I imagine that there would be a river of blood and gold leading to my doorway, no question of that," Voldemort said, leaning against the table and looking down at her.

This was a completely new feeling, Hermione thought as she opened the cover - she reveled in the slight creak of the binding. It was reminiscent of eight years ago, but the stab of betrayal and helplessness was replaced by unfettered curiosity and, yes, even desire. There was no shame in this. There should be, she knew that, but her practical side, the side that had been carefully cultivated within the Medicus training, knew only duty, only what she had promised she would do, only that to which to bound herself. That thread, that silver thread that wrapped from core to core - it was as though that thread made her forget all her qualms about which side she was on. She saw Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna, Remus, Severus, even Albus in the back of her mind, but superseding those images was the ever familiar visage of the Dark Lord, to whom she had forfeited her life.

The Dark Lord who now watched her with his inscrutable eyes - no derision, no malice, no intrigue or amusement, just watchful, objective, observant. She looked back at the book.

There was no cover page. The top of the first piece of parchment broke into immediate prose in an even hand, almost too perfect, like copperplate. Occasionally, Hermione could see where eagerness lengthened the script and blotted the page, but Voldemort managed to make every word clear and precise, with turns of phrase adorning the primarily dry language. This was not like Severus's writings at all. There was linear progression, everything had its place, as though Voldemort's mind itself were like a thought-out thesis.

One day with this book and she would have a look into the mind of one of the most brilliant wizards for a few centuries - certainly the most brilliant student at Hogwarts. And she could have it for more than just one day. Even as his pet, she would never have turned down such an opportunity.

Voldemort gently closed the book, and the smooth white on textured, weathered black drew her attention back to him.

"Will you stay here or take it to your chambers?" Voldemort asked.

Hermione did not know quite what to say, as though a haze shadowed her mind from reality while the words that etched the pages of the notebook shone clear as day. "Here, I suppose," she said. Her hands still clutched at the book.

"Then perhaps my chambers or yours would be more appropriate, Hermione," he said. "I want you to have a clear head when you're reading my work."

"Here is fine, Lord Voldemort," Hermione replied. "I'm thinking clearly in here." Her nail ran along the uneven stack of parchment that made up the notebook.

His eyes followed the progress of her finger.

"Fine." He reached to the top of one of the piles of books and handed her another book. "This one is for you, to make notes as you're writing. Do not write in my books, and I would not touch any of the other books that are here without my knowledge. They are... dangerous, as I'm sure you are aware. Even with your admirable knowledge of Dark texts - as I remember it - there are traps waiting for you if you are overly eager. With this," he tapped the book, "distraction, you may fall into the traps laid out for you."

"Would you mind?" Hermione asked, the haze still blurring her thoughts.

"Not much, although some of the books might," he paused, "damage you in ways that I do not want my Medicus to be damaged."

"Where did all these books come from?" She looked around at the shelves that were quieter now, less insistent.

"Collected through the years," Voldemort said. "Some are my own, some inherited from Slytherin's own library in the Chamber, some from my Death Eaters. You can appreciate the collection of such a span of years."

"Yes," she whispered, thinking of the Medicus library.

"You will be all right here?"

"Yes," she said.

"Do not let yourself be distracted."

"I won't." She set the blank notebook down on the table and put Voldemort's next to it. She opened both books and took the quill and ink in front of the stacks to prepare. Her only duty now was to read the book and understand it.

Voldemort stood as her sight traced the lines he wrote so long ago, when he was still human. He left her alone in the library.

She was obsessed. She knew this. Meals were brought to her after she failed to go to the ones set up for different groups of Voldemort's followers. When Voldemort ducked into the library to see what was wrong with her after the third missed feast - not meals - Hermione was writing furiously, her handwriting hardly legible in the fervor she applied to the quill and ink and ideas. There were circles and bags under her blood-shot, unfocused eyes, and her cheeks were red while her skin was pale. Her hand quivered where it held the quill, and he could see that she was awake on nervous energy alone. She had not eaten in a week and a half, and her lips were parched from dehydration.

He took the quill from her fingers, and by habit, she continued writing even though her hands were red and swollen. He wrapped his cold fingers through her own and pulled her from the books. He turned to the house elf that he had brought with him, and the elf jumped nervously to help Levitate her from the chair before she collapsed. Voldemort brought his hand to her face and closed her eyelids. She fell asleep almost immediately, her breathing deep and even.

He ordered the house elf to take her to her chambers, bathe her of the filth, ink, and dust that covered her hands and clothes, and put her in bed. When she woke, she was to have food and drink appropriate for someone who had abstained for so long.

He was waiting for her after she stepped out of her chambers and into his. He beckoned from one of the armchairs. Hermione quietly joined him by the hearth.

There was silence for a moment.

"Killing yourself will not help me, although it might free you," Voldemort said. "I don't think you want to kill yourself."

"If I'm still living after everything that has happened, I don't want to die," she said.

"I don't think you were meant to work yourself on my behind at the expense of your own health."

"I was... distracted," Hermione said, looking slightly to the left of him, toward the fire. "Fascinated."

"Do you find my work fascinating?" Voldemort asked.

"I cannot imagine anyone who would not think so," Hermione said. "How old were you when you began the notebook?"

Voldemort settled back in his chair. "I began developing theories when I was sixteen. The writing began at eighteen when I was searching for my answers. Young, like you."

Hermione's head whipped toward him. "I wasn't searching for those kinds of answers, you know that."

"We were looking for the same answers, Hermione," Voldemort replied. "We just had different intentions."

"We had different answers," Hermione said. "I was looking for the antidote. You were looking for the poison."

"Every poison needs an antidote. An antidote is useful whether you want to help or hurt. I was not always able to find one, as you have probably read," Voldemort said, his eyes half-lidded. "Just as you needed the poison to find the antidote."

They stared at each other. There was no anger, but the tension was far from comfortable.

"You missed three feasts already," Voldemort said finally. "There are not many feasts during one year - I don't like being confined to such a schedule - but I would like to make you a familiar presence among my followers. These last few were expendable, but two weeks from now, I want you to attend the feast with my Death Eaters again. The younger ones will have come back by then, the ones your age. I daresay they have been wondering when you would come back."

"Two weeks?" Hermione asked.

"I want you to be warned well ahead of the event. A clock and a calendar would not be remiss in the library if you intend to live there. I would also recommend eating, bathing, and going through regular hygienic rituals." He raised his brows, and a ghost of a smile quirked Hermione's lips. "You can feel me through the connection, Hermione, but I don't believe you've thought about how I can feel you as well. When you let yourself fall to pieces, I can feel it."

A faint anxiety uncurled in her stomach. "I knew, but I suppose I forgot. In temporary bindings, mutual empathy is not typical, unless it is a long-term, temporary arrangement."

"Take care of yourself as you will take care of me," he said. It sounded like an order, but the words were softened by very real concern in his tone. "Call for a house elf if you feel hungry or need any help. Or... if I am in the room, you may ask for my assistance. If it is dire, I will know and will come to you."

Hermione looked at him closely. "All right," she replied. "Likewise, whether due to the decay or some other problem."

"Agreed."

"Yes," Hermione whispered.

Read? Review!

**Author notes:** Okay, maybe my header author's notes showed a little of my frustration. It's been very difficult for me to write - like wringing water from a stone. I very nearly quit completely. I think taking a break for a month, despite the therapeutic effects, threw off the original spark. I'm trying to find it again.

I hope that I corrected what has been missing. I think I have. It's a short chapter, but I wanted to cut it off here instead of going ahead, partially because I like this break and partially because I wanted to give y'all a chapter.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Title:** Ascent (07)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** **Category:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Carmen Medicus  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** This is a slightly darker, but longer chapter for everyone. 

**Chapter 7**

_The Knights think that they have never seen my face. Even those I once called friends have forgotten Tom Riddle and remember only Voldemort, only the name. My transf__ormations are not yet complete. I__ need the Knights in their entirety in order to weave the spells into a dome. It will deprive them of magical energy for a few days, but they know that they are safe __around me __as long as I am only seen as a political opponent. Playing the charming Voldemort reminds me of the old days, and although Dumbledore still discredits me with "ill-founded accusations," as the __Prophet__ calls them, I remain the favorite among both the aristocracy and the __middle class__. They are all that really matter at the moment, and as long as the Chamber stays quiet, and as long as my experiments continue unnoticed, there is a good chance that I __can__ insinuate into the Ministry with a peaceful coup. Lucius assures me that his funds will support us until then, and beyond. He is faithful, if conceited, and his fervor is useful to me. I look forward to__ consuming his magic and looking through his mind. His aura will be ever so delightful after filtering through my own. And __Bellatrix, sweet young Bella__, with her zeal and skill at death, will be like chocolate, I know.__ So young and so corrupted. She and Rodolphus will do nicely for one another. Maybe I will put them next to each other in the circle __to taste__ the energy that crackles about them, that so obsessive hate._

_First my Knights, soon to be my true Death Eaters, with my Mark. Then the people who worship me__ yet do not know me__. They will soon see the true colors of Lord Voldemort._

Hermione knew that she would have to run to the feast, but she was in no hurry to meet the Death Eaters again, and she was even less eager to meet her old schoolmates. She was dressed in her formal Medicus robes of navy and gold like she had been upon her entrance into the fortress, but she sat on her couch, Voldemort's book on her thighs and her notebook perched on the arm of the couch.

Her fingers followed the lines of text in feverish deliberateness. She did not want to miss a single word. Every detail, every nuance of his structure and line of thought, introduced her to Voldemort in his entirety, from the spells upon his physical body to the mental disciplines to which he subjected himself. She jotted down notes, not the thought out prose that Voldemort wrote, but quick shorthand that she had always used for her primary notes. After every section, she would go over her own notes and arrange them in some semblance of order. Hermione marveled that Voldemort managed to do this in his head.

She was so caught up in the notebook that the house elf, Gumma, had to constantly remind her to eat, sleep, bathe, but at least she did, which was a change from before. It seemed that as long as she delved into Voldemort's mind this way, safely, she could shut the rest out and just relax in a way that she always had before. Words were what she knew, and when they swirled about her head in copperplate and smooth words, she had control. She did not have to touch him to know him.

She felt his eyes on her now. Not always literally - she was beginning to connect the hum in her Dark Mark with the way she felt when he looked at her with that quiet intensity, the kind that seemed to seep into her skin until she was almost comfortable with his presence. He did not come to see her often, maybe once or twice between her collapse and the feast. She pointedly ignored him. If he was not coming in with an arrow through his stomach, his problems were not yet pressing, and since the Dark Lord was not prone to open discussion, a mental approach to healing would have to be reserved for the future. She admitted to herself that, for now, she preferred the arrangement, just waiting for them to become more comfortable with each other, if ever. She was dreading the point when she finished her work on his notebook and had to address the man himself.

_C. draws i/ other nrg fr DEs and civies. what spells? does C. have nrg aft BWL? when Knights DEs?_

She arrived a few minutes late again. Voldemort waited for her outside the door; when he saw her coming down the corridor, he entered the dining room without her, his displeasure evident by the way his eyes narrowed into crimson slashes against his face before turning his back. She came in a beat later, hair a little disheveled, but otherwise, she was not out of place among the array of Death Eaters that sat at the table and milled about the room.

"Welcome, lady," Carmen said, floating over to her and offering a hand. "I was wondering when I would see your lovely face again."

He led her to the seat in which she sat last time, and Hermione could feel the attention upon her as she sat in the chair at Voldemort's right hand. She looked up when Carmen floated to the other side of the table, and she almost asked him to come back - the seat next to her was where he sat last time, and she wanted him to be next to her because she could rely on him to act like a gentleman.

Bellatrix slid into the chair next to her, Rodolphus next to Bellatrix. Bellatrix smirked and stared at Hermione through hooded eyes before turning to Rodolphus and whispering in his ear.

The Death Eaters slowly sat in their places. Hermione looked at Carmen as she tried not to look at the others out of the corner of her eyes, those that she recognized from her school days.

"Hello, Granger," Draco whispered in her ear. Hermione anticipated the attempt to rattle her and did not humor him by responding. "We've missed you. Has the Dark Lord not put you in chains yet or do you save that for nights like you used to do?"

"We much prefer the knives, although most of the time, we don't bother with toys at all," Hermione said, watching the way that Voldemort paced, his eyes always on her.

"Good to hear," Draco said. "After all, eight years, must be some pent up energy that you were unable to release around all those oppressively _good_ people. Unless old Professor Lupin or Professor Snape have stuck their hands in the cauldron."

"I suppose it was too much to expect that you had grown up a little," Hermione said, twisting around to face him.

"So you've come back," Draco murmured, cocking his head as he studied her. "I was right to support our lord in his decision to free you. You've crawled back on your hands and knees, finally. I knew a bitch like you always comes back to her master."

"It pays to listen," Hermione said evenly, standing so that she was closer to Draco. "After all, you were given two ears that never close and a mouth that does. That must say something. No one else is insulting me, although they seem to be paying very close attention to our interaction here.

"You're twenty five, I'm sure you can figure out why I'm wearing nice clothes, I'm clean, and none of the Death Eaters are joining you, as they might have had I come in on my hands and knees. As a _pureblood_ wizard, it should not take you too long," Hermione said. "After all, you're cultured and know all your wizarding history. Dazzle me, Draco, with your knowledge."

Draco was growing steadily more uneasy. He took in the colors, the ink-stains on her fingers, and finally, the Medicus crest on the collar of her robes. His normally pale face turned ashy.

"For whom?" he asked.

Hermione sat down again.

"_I_ am her client," Voldemort said, pulling back his chair and joining his Death Eaters at the table. The feast appeared in the platters, plates, and bowls, and Draco was left staring at Hermione and the Dark Lord and the line of Death Eaters who stared back with countenances ranging from resignation to agreement with him to outright ignoring him.

"Wait," Draco said.

Voldemort looked up from his small meal, setting down his fork, his thin mouth an even line and his mood impossible to interpret. This should have been the first side.

"You need a... Medicus? _You_ need a Medicus?" Draco asked.

Voldemort whipped out his wand, but instead of the Cruciatus Curse, he said, "_Sensitimperio_."

"You are to treat my Medicus with respect, Draco Malfoy," Voldemort said softly as Draco knelt and bowed before Hermione's chair. "She is an extension of me now, and all memory of her original position here is to be erased from your memory. You were absent with the others from the meeting when I told my Death Eaters that I required a Medicus. Although Medicus Granger's appointment was... surprising... possibly questionable, I would prefer the first choice Medicus rather than taking on a Medicus who is not compatible to my needs."

Hermione looked under the table in shock as Draco crawled to her feet and removed one of her shoes. He nuzzled the arch of her foot before running his tongue along the sole, a harsh remembrance of when she had to do the same to Voldemort. She jerked her foot away from him, and Draco began to cry like a little boy.

"Enough," Hermione hissed at Voldemort. He was smiling, watching the boy with the curve of lip that she was once so familiar with. He continued with his humiliation.

"Should you question the reason for a Medicus and my request for one, you will find yourself the example before all of my Death Eaters, like your father, that my power is still strong." Draco gouged red furrows in his cheeks, slapping himself, and Hermione had to look away at the self-flagellation.

"Please stop," Hermione whispered.

"Never forget that I am still your Dark Lord and master, Draco," Voldemort said. "It is my Mark on your arm, a Mark that you accepted willingly. You know the consequences for disloyalty or betrayal: you are given to Nott to play with. Do you understand?"

Voldemort released him from the spell, and Draco collapsed, his face a filthy smear of tears, blood, and snot. He was shaking, struggling to get to his feet. Hermione reached out to grasp his shoulder in aid, but she pulled back when she thought that the last thing that Draco wanted or needed was the touch of a Mudblood. He stumbled to his place at the table, next to Lisa and his father. Neither he nor any of the Death Eaters around him attempted to heal him.

Hermione looked at the food on her plate. She was not very hungry anymore. Carmen watched her, slowly cutting his chicken. She poked at her food with a fork as the Death Eaters around her lapsed into conversation. She was only half-listening as she ran over the hovering words from Voldemort's notebook, words that she had read but had not yet commented on.

_Torture. Both on myself and on others, observing my Knights' methods and my own. It is interesting how we differ in execution and __emotion__. I feel nothing but a sense of contentment - occasionally, satisfaction. __Bella orgasms, and Rodolphus, only when he tortures with her, comes as well. Macnair becomes anxious and excitable after a good kill, while it is simply duty to me. Yet I enjoy it so, and I hesitate __to kill __only because every person who __crosses my path might be useful__, no matter what the creature. Even the Muggles provide entertainment before the torture and the kill. Their pleads grow more and more desperate as a wand or a knife comes __closer to their flesh, and the energy that charges their fear__, however slight, increase__s__ my power._

Carmen hid a smile as he watched her slip into that half-trance typical of people deep in thought. The consciousness in Hermione's eyes slowly glassed over, and it was all he could do not to chuckle at the way she was holding her fork just above the plate. He remembered when Voldemort still fell into those periods of introspection; he didn't anymore - he had finally learned to think on several different levels in order to avoid being caught unawares.

"Yes, my lord," he muttered. "This one is for you."

Voldemort noticed how red and slightly swollen her right hand still was, and the way that the fingers curled and shook. He was intrigued by the way the black of the ink and the flush of swollen skin contrasted with the smoothness of tan flesh along her palm and wrist and the white tips of her nails. She did not seem to notice the swelling, so there was no reason to mention that she was killing her hand. Not yet. Murtlap essence was easy enough to come by, and she probably had her own among her potions materials

Wounds had always been a point of interest for him. Pain. Suffering. Even when he was a boy and scraped his knees on the pavement, he would observe the slow draw of the dark red blood to the surface, the way the flesh was ragged, the process of healing from wet scab to rough scab to smooth pink or pearly white scars. He would also note bruises and the different colors that graced the pale skin as it disappeared. When his followers began to torture victims that he once had to torture on his own, he had a singular opportunity to just look at the gaping stomachs, bloody mouths, and wide, marble eyes. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Macnair were the best for that, although Avery and Nott left behind interesting remains of children when they were through with them. He remembered how eager his younger self was with a more hands-on approach to his Death Eaters and victims alike - the Muggle in him, he supposed, although many of his Death Eaters didn't mind the approach themselves.

It had been so long since a personal touch to his attacks. The war, for all the seething emotion inherent, had turned into strategy and almost staged attacks, always guerilla tactics on his side, although they were remarkably effective considering the circumstances, strengthened by his growing numbers. Some of his followers that claimed sanctuary in the fortress had never even seen him before. The recruits that the younger Death Eaters found would have to be culled and sorted into their places among his ranks - perhaps it was time to let them see their master and know him as someone to respect while their opinions were still impressionable. Not the weakening tyrant that they were beginning to believe he was, at least the newest arrivals. His Death Eaters and Black Dogs knew better, even if they doubted his abilities in their minds, but his Cat's Paws were growing restless, and his miscellaneous followers and refugees did not really understand what he was about. He should set them on a task, an assassination, an attack, a raid, to introduce them to the real agenda rather than just the ideology. But he could use their resources, and their energy filled the fortress and the spells surrounding it with power that he could practically drink. With that power, the ward spells remained solid and strong.

"Macnair, Crabbe, Goyle," he called, his softer tone carrying over the murmur of conversation. "Bring four into the audience chamber. We will meet you in a minute."

"My lord, the recruits are dining in..." Macnair said.

"I know."

"Yes, my lord." Macnair jerked his head at the other two men, and they left the room for the dungeons. The other Death Eaters were all looking at him, their meals finished or forgotten.

Voldemort stood. "My Death Eaters," Voldemort said, "would you like to play?"

There was a rush of noise, like an ecstatic sigh, and Bellatrix nipped Hermione's ear as she and Rodolphus joined the rest of the Death Eaters walking out of the room, glints of something dangerous in their eyes. Hermione started from her visual memory, and she reflexively pressed a hand to her ear. She felt a few smears of blood, nothing serious, but she stared after Bellatrix, who blew her a kiss before turning into the corridor. Carmen flew over the table and offered her a hand with quiet permission from Voldemort. Hermione's brow furrowed in confusion, but she took Carmen's hand.

"What...? Where...?" Hermione stammered as Carmen led her out the door. Voldemort preceded them to the audience chamber and held the door open. As Hermione passed him, their gazes locked, connected, and she felt the silver thread, a giddiness, the hum of the Mark. That connection, that bubble of pleasure, faded when she looked away, stomach twisting in protest - she was unsure what it was protesting, the connection or the withdrawal.

Hermione froze when she saw what waited in front of the throne.

They were not witches or wizards - their clothes were too modern, styled in the Muggle fashion, and in the midst of despair, there was a sort of curiosity in their eyes at the clothing and setting of their surroundings. They were posed like toads on the ground with their hands bound behind their back, their heads bowed, just the whites of their eyes rolling to stare about them. Muggles. Muggles who looked as though they had been in the dungeons for several weeks, clothes, faces, hair filthy. There were two men, one of about twenty eight and the other around forty five, one woman of about thirty, and a boy of thirteen.

"No," she whispered under her breath, the word a choked gasp.

_Shackles around her wrists. Naked at his feet._

"God, no."

_Spat in her__ face. Death Eater __whore. Wormtail's toy. Dark Lord's bitch.__ Present._

"I-I-I'm leaving," she said quickly, whipping around and starting out of the door, but Carmen kept hold of her hand with a grip tighter than expected for a man of his age.

"Stay, Hermione," Voldemort said, closing the door in front of her. "I'm afraid I insist. It has been too long since my Medicus has seen what it means to be close to me. She may have grown complacent in those years of recovery."

"I remember," Hermione said. "These things don't leave a person so easily."

"Perhaps complacency would not be remiss in my Medicus," Voldemort continued, taking the wrist of her free hand and pulling her with Carmen to the front. "At least a degree of callousness. Use your finely honed mind and understand why apathy might be a valuable asset to you in your work."

_I hesitate to kill only because every person who crosses my path might be useful, no matter what the creature._

"Nonpartisanship, lady," Carmen said. "I've known the Medicus Order. I had one rehabilitate me after the war against Grindelwald. Sometimes..."

"Nonpartisanship is political, Carmen. I'm sure your Medicus was not best friends with the other side or once part of the other side and a victim of her client, which makes this personal," Hermione said as Voldemort stood her next to his throne, where she once sat chained to the chair. "I've discussed this with the Elders. But... now's not the time. Lord Voldemort... I shouldn't..."

"Now," Voldemort said. He did not let go of her wrist even as he turned to his Death Eaters and the new people that the younger Death Eaters recruited while they were gone as well as some civilian followers, Black Dogs, and Cat's Paws.

"Welcome." The murmuring around the audience chamber, particularly among the recruits, settled into silence as Voldemort's cold voice cut through the noise. Hermione could see a few green faces, but more excitement than she would have liked - or rather, than the Order would have liked.

"By coming here to me, you have made a decision, a decision that is difficult to rectify should you change your mind. You have been adequately warned by my representatives, and here you are, in my hands, in my fortress, in my parlor, if you will. For those of you with whom I am less familiar or to whom I am a stranger, you will go through training in order to discover your strengths and where you belong among my ranks. Should your aptitude lean toward becoming one of my Death Eaters, we shall know each other extremely well by the end of your training. The interaction will not be pleasant, but it will be necessary - you will understand when the occasion calls for it.

"You are also here because you share an idea with me - I don't know which you favor, the purification of the wizarding world, loathing the Muggle world, conquering the Ministry and creating a new order. But we _do _share this idea. And you have to be prepared for the actions necessary to execute that idea.

"Before you are four Muggles, chosen for your enjoyment and as a demonstration. My Death Eaters will show you what it means to be my true, loyal, obedient follower. You will see just how far we go in our campaign for supremacy - then you will be set among some of our Muggle prisoners in the dungeons, and we will see how you fare.

"Let me tell you what I want," Voldemort said, deliberately walking down the steps and approaching the child. He clenched his hand in the boy's hair and pulled the boy's head back. "I want to observe the fine art of torture -patience, creativity, and discernment. I want to see you abandon yourself to all the darker desires you harbor in the back of your minds. I want you to harness that wild spirit and use it to destroy. I want you to see the goal - a greater, more powerful magical community that is unafraid and unashamed of its place in this world. I want to swim in a sea of blood until they all fall to their knees. We heal and hurt and heal and hurt until they prostrate themselves before us. This is what I want."

He drew his wand and held it to the boy's white neck. With a few murmured words, the boy was Levitated and unbound, his arms and legs stretched out to the sides as though he were on an invisible rack. Hermione winced at the boy's joints were pulled out of their sockets, starting from the feet and ending at the head. The screams that rang against the stone walls and floors for an entire thirty minutes suddenly stopped.

"Bella, Rodolphus, Macnair, Lucius, deal with the others. Show them your art," Voldemort hissed, red eyes dark with pleasure.

"No."

The voice was no longer lost in the past, but grounded in the present, and Hermione's face was flushed as she strode down the steps to where the Muggles cried on the floor.

"I'm your Medicus," Hermione said, "but I'm also _a_ Medicus. I simply... this is... I cannot possibly condone this."

"You can, and you will," Voldemort replied, facing her with his eyes still dark. "I have read Medicus regulations as closely as you have. This is a war, Hermione, and I am on one side of it. This will understandably be difficult, but you know that I don't care. I am concerned about my welfare and my welfare only. These," he spat toward the Muggles, "are not your concern. They, like many of the people you shall see in the long future ahead of you, are prisoners of war at my disposal. They are casualties. Or they will be. Thus, their deaths, while entertaining personally, are political. You cannot interfere with any political actions. Therefore, your hands are tied when it comes to torture. My hands are tied when it comes to torturing _you_, but I still believe I have the better half of the deal. So you may as well accustom yourself to my more distasteful habits - there is only so much you can learn from a book, and perhaps seeing me as the true Dark Lord will both teach you to remember your trials eight years ago again and show you who I truly am."

"This isn't who you _are_," Hermione said, sweeping her hand over the Muggles and the wizards and witches in the hall. "This is what you do, and I've seen enough of that. This isn't necessary..." But the last word trailed off before it finished, and Hermione shut her mouth as she realized that she was wrong in that respect.

"So you _have_ learned a little something in your obsession," Voldemort said, crossing his arms and looking down at her. "I was beginning to think you lost your touch."

"Hardly," Hermione replied. "These Muggles aren't prisoners of war - they are incidental in your political attack. They aren't the other side. If you were torturing the Ministry or Order members or Hogwarts students or whoever was against you, that would be a political act with which I could not interfere. But these are victims, and you can't dress them up as prisoners."

"Our war is against the Muggle world as well," Voldemort said. "It is not yet a direct attack, but they have always been against us, simply as magical people. You cannot deny that."

"My parents weren't," Hermione said quietly. "They supported wizarding traditions, even if they did not always understand them. You killed them anyway."

"For you," Voldemort said. "Still casualties rather than murdered innocents. You and I can twist interpretations all night."

"Then can you kill these Muggles if we're arguing?" Hermione asked.

"I never intended to," Voldemort said smoothly. "The boy was my example. The rest belong to my Death Eaters."

"Then I am not impeding you," Hermione said, taking out her wand, "in impeding them."

Voldemort caught her arm. "They are acting under my orders. Give up and give in, my Medicus."

"This is wrong," she hissed.

"That is not your prerogative. You belong to me, not right or wrong."

"And you belong to me," Hermione said.

Voldemort hesitated for the barest second, not enough for anyone else to see, but enough for her. "Take your place and watch, Hermione. You have lost this round. After this session, you may return to the notebook. Is that amenable?"

"No," Hermione replied, "but I suppose I don't have much choice."

Read? Review!

**Author notes:** I know, you didn't have the junior Death Eater action that you and I were hoping for. But they're ready for another ride soon - I'll see what comes of it.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Was it all right?


	8. Chapter Eight

**Title:** Ascent (08)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** **Category:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Medicus Bellatrix Lucius  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** Hello, loves, chapter eight is here! 

**Chapter 8**

_My skill with a pen is poor, but I shall transcribe what little I managed here with a better hand once I return to my old form... if I ever return. However, my plans against Harry Potter and Hogwarts seem to be progressing flawlessly despite my wearied, muddled state. __My hands do not want to hold the quill, but what I have accomplished must be recorded._

Hermione was falling asleep on the couch despite the intensity of the story behind her years with Harry. The magical theory and practice was becoming more and more arcane, and she was tempted to try some of it just to see if it could work with some one else, as all experiments should be studied. However, trekking to the deserts of western Asia was not something that she could ask someone to do, especially since the process of transforming under Naga venom was an extremely painful one, and the transfigurations necessary in order to live that experience made the possibility of experimentation utterly impossible because that kind of wand work was more than just impressive - it was genius.

Her fingers trailed on the carpet as her head deepened on the pillow. All she could think about, in swirls of deep red and black velvet, was the crack of the boy's bones, Voldemort's eyes, the way his black wand stroked the boy's skin, a rush of words, the whispering of the Dark Arts texts and the smoothness of the notebook's cover before her.

Her lips were parched, and a cold wine slid over them, over her tongue, down her throat, bitter, like blood, but she had tasted blood before, and this wasn't it. More like satin made liquid. Her thirst was quenched, but she still reached out, a silver thread spewing from her mouth even as her hands opened and closed, clenching in desperate need. Faces, a glint of glasses, scars all over the body, fangs, teeth, eyes, eyes, eyes. She wanted to scream, wanted to die, her legs spread, wrapped around a pillow that she knew wasn't a pillow, but she did not want to see what it really was. She gasped for air as the wine choked her. She began convulsing, her body jerking with pangs of lightning.

Fingers stroked her cheek, and her eyes fluttered open, her body still shaking.

"You screamed in my head," Voldemort explained, pulling away and sitting back on his heels. "I remember what that feels like. I don't like to be reminded."

"I'm-I'm sorry," Hermione gasped absentmindedly, pushing herself upright. "When I have nightmares... I guess it was just intense. I'm sorry."

"As long as I don't have to kill someone I don't want to kill," Voldemort said. He stood and looked at her as she looked back down at the book. "I kill, Hermione. You know why."

"Because you're a sociopath who thinks it's okay to kill," Hermione said, closing the notebook. "Admittedly, you're a fascinating sociopath, but there are other ways of gathering energy, magical or otherwise. Although murder is the most efficient, it is generally frowned upon."

"But you don't, or you shouldn't," Voldemort said. "Once you became my Medicus, this fallacious concept of good and evil, right and wrong, should have turned into rules, what you can and can't do with me."

"And yet I'm still a human and not some mindless automaton," Hermione said. "That's how I can address your problems properly, by having opinions, being able to formulate theories, by considering, deliberating, ruminating, whatever you want to call it that some machine would be unable to accomplish. The very conflicts I face with you are what allow me to better meet your needs. Does that sound good?"

"It's interesting to see how you justify yourself," Voldemort replied, sitting down on the coffee table across from her so that their faces were level. "And it will be even more interesting when you actually have to help me rather than research how you are going to help me. I'm curious to know if you even will."

"I will," Hermione said softly.

"Yes, you will," Voldemort said, eyes narrowing slightly. His voice dropped to a hiss. "At the expense that you require, you will. But I require assurance." He slid his wand from his belt and brought it to his throat. With a quick _Serrato_, blood began to slid down his chest in a slow line. He had not punctured anything fatal, but if she just let him bleed, he could lose too much blood. She did not know what this sort of dying would do to him - the charms surrounding his bodies were still indefinable, and Hermione did not know how he would return... because he would not put his blood at her mercy without certainty.

Her throat prickled, either with heart ache or with shared feeling - she suspected from past experiences that it was the latter. She knew when his breathing turned harsh. Hermione felt a heaviness in her stomach as she stood and went to her cupboard to find a potion - this sort of injury, as dangerous as it was in the Muggle world, was no different than any ordinary cut if treated properly. And Hermione knew how to treat it properly. Taking the salve and pouring a little in her hands, Hermione pressed the gelatinous substance across the deep cut, deep into the furrow created by the edge of the wand. A swallow brought the skin together around her fingers, which felt strange, but the potion worked as it had always worked, slowing the flow of blood to a trickle before closing the wound.

He looked up at her, clearly pleased, before taking his notebook from the sofa cushion.

"Sleep," he said. "I'll bring this back to the library. You can read it tomorrow."

"I'm awake now," Hermione protested. "You bloody woke me up."

"Nervous energy," Voldemort said. "You'll fall asleep again. Just rest."

"Last time I checked, you were neither my parent nor my Medicus," Hermione said, coming up behind him into his room.

"Last time I checked, your hand needed soaking, your handwriting is nearly illegible, and the notebook will continue to be here for you. And I told you to take care of yourself. Sleeping is one of those things."

"I'll have nightmares again," she said softly.

"I'll try and shut my mind," Voldemort replied.

"Because of you."

Voldemort set the book on the table in the library and turned around to face her. His face was closed, but Hermione could sense a level of disquiet, if not discomfort. "I told you, Hermione," he said slowly. "I am what I am. This is what I am and what I do - the two are interchangeable. You must accept that and move beyond your childish ideas of right and wrong when they mean nothing as a Medicus."

"They mean something to Hermione," she murmured. "That sort of discernment is inextricably linked to my personality. You can't dismiss the person behind the title."

"No," Voldemort said. "You can't. But when you've chosen the title, the choice itself must be acknowledged. I'll block my mind as best as I can from your screams if you have a nightmare again."

He ducked through the fireplace back into his room again. Hermione looked back at the notebook with longing, but she ducked after him.

"I'm trying to help you. Why are you so insistent on making me sleep when I want to work?" Hermione said.

Voldemort whirled around, grasping her shoulders. "You aren't helping me," he snapped. "You're indulging whatever morbid curiosity you have for me. You're not helping me by driving yourself to exhaustion - your stripping yourself of any ability to function just so you can read another page about me, not for me. This has all been for you, the healing a few minutes ago notwithstanding. Now go to your chambers and go to sleep."

Hermione felt like a chastised child, but she was so stricken that she did as she was told. She lowered herself onto her bed, closing the curtains that let her see the door into his chambers. She felt a burning behind her eyes, but she clenched them shut and drifted into the Hogwarts library, wandering through the aisles until she fell asleep again.

_Hermione began as an obstacle. She has become an opportunity. She can keep the right Death Eaters distracted, Carmen has taken an__ instant__ interest in her, and she provides entertainment for me. How fortunate that her presence among my followers is secondary to my primary focus - I watch as Dumbledore's foundation crumbles around him. I can feel Harry's desperation and despair through our connection that he thinks has been guarded against. __Patience has always aided my cause in the end, and Harry is still young enough to misunderstand my silence.__ It is almost a relief, however, to strike Harry with the silence of his girl. She falls apart at my coaxing, and he hears only speculation, bleak and uncertain. Yes, indecision and uncertainty are two of the most potent weapons.__ However, soon, this subterfuge must end, for my followers gather, grow..._

The months recorded during which Hermione was a prisoner in the fortress were interspersed with gleeful or introspective paragraphs regarding her place in the fortress, among his prisoners, in comparison to other thoroughly tortured victims, the methods of breaking her, layer by layer. She was not mentioned nearly as often as she might have expected, but even when he did not write her name, she recognized when she might have stimulated a certain thought.

It was interesting for Hermione to see elements of her imprisonment from this account - although she still occasionally had nightmares of the time, she began to realize how long ago it was. There was still about one hundred pages of close writing to go through, spanning over eight years. Although she felt a twinge when Voldemort's crueler plans for her were discussed so callously, reading it on a page somehow distanced it from her. She no longer froze at any mention of that past. She could force herself to read through the words that spoke of her torture as easily as it wrote about the occasional bad weather. He could disparage Dumbledore in one paragraph, then admire something one of the training Death Eaters did. He could throw her to Wormtail and follow the sentence with his own darkly humorous interpretation of their relationship. She felt like vomiting, but she could not see Wormtail's room as vividly; she could not remember the pain at all. Her hands clenched tightly to the arm of the sofa as she read of Voldemort's plan to kill her parents, but she no longer fell into a sort of catatonia, staring at a wall and seeing their deaths a hundred times.

After she had been accepted as a Medicus-in-training, Hermione went back to the ruin that was once her house. The city had already begun to clean up the wreckage for someone else to live on the land, but she set a bouquet of lilies on the front walk, saying her final good byes to her parents. Even after the new house was built, she continued to visit the place every month, just to look at the place where she had once been content, if not happy. Drifting from her parents had been inevitable, but she still loved them. Part of her knew it was not her fault that they died, but she felt a certain sense of responsibility. She supposed that the people who owned the new house just threw the lilies into their trash, but Hermione persisted in honoring her parents' awful deaths. Lilies always reminded her of marble eyes, mutated bodies, and blood seeping from bite wounds now.

_I have released her, and the result has been better than I even imagined. Already, there are whispers around the Ministry__, whispers of betrayal. It is remarkable how easily they can be manipulated by the very person they fear the most. The fear makes them pliable, subject to my whim by their own paranoia. I can simply sit back and observe their single-handed destruction of themselves. Not only themselves, but a girl who could very probably be their greatest asset if they ever trust her again. Even those who might believe her story will always wonder in the back of their minds. The genius of it is that she will wonder the same thing._

_She __will__ return to me.__ The thought alone imbues me with pleasure - the friend of Harry Potter, ostracized for her experiences, denied from every person who she once counted a friend, with nowhere to go but to the person to whom everyone expects her to go - to me. Without Hermione on their side, something in their dynamic will be torn from them, as it has since I ripped her away the first time.__ And her mind, her brilliance, and her loyalty will be for me. Only for me. How delicious. Who knows how long it might take for her to find her way back here, but she will come._

"Is that really how you thought of me?" Hermione asked even as her eyes continued to read down the page.

Voldemort did not ask how she knew he entered the room. He, too, had begun to feel her presence, like shifts in a cool draft. One more result of the binding. Voldemort was wary of the way Hermione seemed to slip into every aspect of his life, be it the effects of the decay and his other undiagnosed problems or hearing the tell-tale crack of her house elf in the library or the dull, foggy pressure in his head when she slept. He wondered if she was feeling his mind as keenly as he felt hers. And he wondered if he knew how open her mind was when she was inside of him.

"Explain," he said. Hermione could hear the movement of his robes as he swept around the sofa to sit in the armchair to her right.

"Just a pawn, something that can be used. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but..."

"But what?"

Hermione looked up, setting her quill onto her notebook and stretching the hand. She was really going to damage it if she kept forcing it beyond its endurance. "But you focused so much of your energy on me. When I was a prisoner, you mentioned my name or the effects of my absence in Hogwarts almost as much as you mentioned Harry or Dumbledore, more attention that I thought you would give to a pet if she was insignificant."

"Everyone is a pawn to Lord Voldemort," he replied. "You were not as special as you think you were. You were just a particularly useful pawn."

"What about now?" she asked quietly. "Am I still just a useful pawn?"

"Yes," Voldemort answered without missing a beat.

"You said to your Death Eaters that I am an extension of yourself. How can a pawn be the extension of a Dark Lord?"

Voldemort smiled. "Why does it matter what I think of you if you stake so much of your confidence around me on being my Medicus?"

Hermione paused. She set the notebook on the coffee table and walked to the window, where the blue velvet of evening transformed the forest, turning it into something peaceful, quiet, less fierce. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose there will always be a small part that wants some sort of approval. It isn't logical, and I don't need it, but I'm still curious."

Voldemort turned to look at her profile against the background of the darkening sky. The profile had changed in the eight years, although she was still very much Hermione, still very much his in her own fashion. She was softer than she had been when he first saw her. Her face was more pronounced in its maturity, her expression less earnest. She was poised and relaxed in his presence, although her hands still twitched, stroking the material of her robes, touching the window. He glimpsed the edge of the Dark Mark on her forearm and could not help but let his mind drift through it, making it hum through his head and her arm. Hermione felt the twinge, and she touched her Mark absentmindedly, still staring out the window.

"I know you were pleased that I came back to you," Hermione said quietly. "But are you pleased that I am your Medicus?"

He walked up behind her, watched as the rays of the sun withdrew from the clouds so that they were shadow against shadow. "I _am_ pleased that you have returned. But aside from invading my body and diagnosing the decay, which I could have told you myself, you've done little more than sit in the room and read. I know that you can read and write more quickly than this, Hermione, even when you are being thorough. You _are_ avoiding your duties, and time continues to move forward. That time furthers the decay. You nearly finished reading so you will need to begin searching for a cure."

Hermione sighed. She knew that her duties, beyond the test that he gave her a few weeks ago, would soon have her helping Lord Voldemort in her fullest capacity, devoting her life to a man who she hated. Her thoughts were circular, all heading toward that one point, helping her enemy. But he was not her enemy - not anymore, although she wanted him to be. She was in him, woven through him like silver braid. His magic curled about her like tendrils of fog, and she could sense the decay more strongly. She would need to enter him again before long to see how the maggots of decay had spread. Feeling that pain made her want to ease it, regardless of the afflicted.

"I will need to leave the fortress," she murmured. She thought she felt a hint of cold breath against the back of her neck. "You are right, I'm almost finished, and I have what I need to start studying what causes the decay as well as search more deeply into your magical core to search for... your other afflictions that you haven't told me about. It would make things move more quickly if you tell me, but I imagine you have your reasons. I need to acquire materials that are not in my stores or in Severus's. I looked in the laboratory. I'll probably have to find Severus to help me find a few items on the black market. Also, I need to leave. Just for a few days. If you need me, I know you can just summon me through the Dark Mark. But I... I need to talk to a few people."

Voldemort touched her shoulder, turning her around. "I don't like you leaving, but I can't stop you if you are going for supplies. Macnair will need to go with you."

"I'm going to places that Macnair cannot go," Hermione said emphatically. "I'll be fine on my own."

"He _will_ go with you," Voldemort replied. "That is one thing that I will not negotiate. He can take a room somewhere, and you can summon him when you are in a less private area, such as when you are procuring the ingredients you need. But he will go with you. If he is unable, I'm afraid Wormtail is the Death Eater to take you."

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, pushing away the thought, but she nodded.

"You'll have to find Macnair yourself when you're ready," Voldemort said, pulling away and heading toward his own chambers. "Tell me before you leave."

"Where is he?" Hermione asked.

"I said you'll have to find him." Voldemort's countenance was wicked as he slipped the open door between their two chambers, closing it behind him.

Hermione allowed herself a little huff of frustration before she returned to her research.

She knew that Voldemort's Death Eaters lived primarily in the east wing with him, but their activities within the fortress tended to slip into the north wing where the dungeons, empty rooms, and the audience chamber were. The fortress was immense - Hermione could wander the full extent of its rooms and corridors and grounds for over a week and not explore every facet of its structure. She was not entirely sure why Voldemort wanted her to search through it rather than telling her exactly where Macnair could be found, but she suspected that he wanted her to be doing something beyond reading and writing. Now that she was finished with her note-taking on Voldemort's notebook, it occurred to her that her hand hurt terribly and she had not moved from their chambers and the library more than twice or three times since she had been giving access to the library and the notebook, when meant that she had sequestered herself for almost two whole months. Voldemort was right, she had been stalling in a way, but she had also went on for pages and pages of her own notes, running her mind through her quill, pondering every step of his ascent to power and his methods of achieving it.

Because the sun was up, the Death Eaters were a little restless - things really started to happen at night, mostly because the creatures that allied with them began their own pleasures after sunset. Macnair would not be in the Death Eater chambers. It was likely that he would be in the Harem or the dungeons, playing with something or someone. She steeled herself for objectivity in the face of deliberate violence as she slipped from the comfortable warmth of the living halls to the harshness of the dungeons. She could hear a few faint shouts, but otherwise, there was silence. Hermione thought that finding the prisoners screaming might lead her to someone who could tell her where Macnair was.

Upon following the screams, she discerned two separate victims, either in the same cell or close to each other - they both came from the same level. Hermione stared straight ahead as she walked down the aisle between the cells, shutting out all whispered, rasping pleas for help, salvation, death. She remembered when the dungeons were empty, when every slight sound ricocheted so many times that they collided with each other in an almost disorienting way. Now there was an occupant or four in every cell, the spoils of war.

She found a cell open near the center of the level, and she peered cautiously in. She found Bellatrix and Rodolphus circling two women, one old, one young, probably related. Bellatrix and Rodolphus moved like wolves or hyenas - creatures fierce and terrible in their predatory symmetry. The spells from their wands entwined about themselves like snakes wrapping around a staff, striking the huddled mass of screams at their feet. Rodolphus's face was as it always was - blank, yet intense, like a quiet volcano. Bellatrix was radiant with delight, her eyes sparkling. Hermione could see the sharper point of one of her teeth prick her lip, drawing blood. Bellatrix relished the taste of the welling crimson as she relished the synchronized pain of the two women. Hermione did not have to undergo a binding to know how the pain gave Bellatrix her strength, her life. The shadows that had settled on her face since Azkaban lifted when she could hurt someone or make them fear her. Hermione knew she loved to mock, loved to startle and make them stumble. Hermione wondered how Rodolphus treated her when Hermione did not see them. Here, there was a triangle of focus, and Hermione was momentarily hypnotized by them.

Rodolphus noticed her first, and the shift of attention alerted Bellatrix to an intruder on their private enjoyment. Hermione did not know what to expect, but she was not surprised when Bellatrix pulled her wand back, breaking the relentless cries of the women. They gasped for air, whimpered, huddled together. Hermione was not surprised when Bellatrix smiled at her, a beautiful yet terrible smile that reminded her of a dangerous feline. Hermione did not know why Bellatrix had decided to favor her other than the fact she had become Voldemort's Medicus rather than pet, the latter which once deserved scorn from the Black daughter. Hermione wondered if it was more than her new status that changed Bellatrix's mind - after all, her blood was impure, and that should have been damning, even for a Medicus. However, she preferred Bellatrix's support, especially since her loyalty was unwavering from Voldemort, and her vote of confidence must mean something among Voldemort's other followers.

She was not surprised by Bellatrix's initial actions, but she jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. Hermione whirled around to face Draco Malfoy. Lucius was further down the hall, eyes half-lidded, face slightly flushed. Draco looked more like his father now, but Hermione could recognize elements of Narcissa in his narrower face and darker hair. Now that he had grown into himself, his face was angular, his eyes even icier than his father's.

"Hello, Granger," he said. His voice was overly pleasant, and Hermione could see the way his hand rested on his wand.

"Draco." Hermione backed into the cell, turning away and looking back at Bellatrix and Rodolphus, who were watching her quietly. "Where is Walden Macnair?"

"There are other ways to get to you, Granger," Draco said. "Just because you've got the Dark Lord wrapped around your finger now doesn't mean that we're going to lick your feet."

"Strange," Hermione murmured. "You wanted _me_ to do that when I returned. And you _did_ lick my feet, or don't you remember."

"_You_ were made for it," Draco replied. "You did so well before, when the Dark Lord had you in chains."

"And I suppose you, who have given yourself to Lord Voldemort, are made to be served by those who know how to use their own two hands," Hermione snapped. "Things don't work that way outside of your twisted little mind."

"Now, now, children," Bellatrix said, passing between them and tugging on Draco's hair. "Let's not argue over who gets father's attention."

"The Medicus needs to learn that not all of us are happy that she is our lord's Medicus," Lucius said, slipping into the cell with them. "He deserves better. Just because the Dark Lord has employed her does not mean that we should accept her without question."

"I was enough for the Oracle, and I'm enough for the Dark Lord," Hermione said, leaning against a wall, feigning bravado but really balancing herself on her shaking legs. "I'm just not enough for you because the Dark Lord punished you - your precious pride was hurt. I'm staying here, and there's little you can do about it. You know that."

"There are other ways of getting rid of you," Draco said. "Ways that may be construed as an accident - amazing what you learn when you're ducking Aurors and Law Enforcement, recruiting right under the nose of Muggles."

"You really _don't _know your Medicus history, do you?" Hermione said, honestly concerned. "Lucius, this sort of knowledge is supposed to be passed down - have you never told him?"

"The Oracle can be fooled," Lucius replied.

"No," Hermione said, stepping forward on an impulse and making Draco step back. "It can't, and I'm surprised it even crossed your minds to try and kill me. I'm a permanent Medicus, Lucius. The only way you rid yourselves of me is to rid yourself of the person to whom I am bound... and that, as far as I can tell, is impossible. And even as you rid yourself of Lord Voldemort, I would be fighting you all the way - that is what I am bound to do."

Neither Draco nor Lucius seemed fazed, but there was a sense of stillness in their demeanors, hesitation.

Rodolphus knelt by one of the women as his feet. He twisted his hand through her hair and pulled her head back so that her neck was bared. He stared at Hermione as he brought his wand to the woman's throat.

"Bellatrix and I will do this to your friends," he murmured. Blue lines, like ink, drew themselves over the woman's skin. She twitched as they slithered about her body, snaking around her limbs, curling around her fingers and neck and arms and legs. "Will you watch and say nothing as they die?"

When the last line closed over the woman's forehead, the woman screamed so loudly that everyone in the cell except for Bellatrix and Rodolphus stumbled back, pressing themselves against the walls and covering their ears. The woman's eyes were wide and white as the lines glowed bright and burning, blackening the skin around it and making her convulse on the floor, trying to put out the fire that lived in the lines. Then, all of a sudden, the screaming stopped, and the woman was still. The older woman stared at the steaming corpse and cried silently, biting her hands.

Hermione concentrated on breathing. Her mind turned the room to an open space where there was no body, no hurt, no pity, no desire for the abyss of oblivion. In this place, she knew what had happened, but she could not care. The face was unfamiliar to her.

"I don't know," she answered quietly.

"You'll watch," Bellatrix whispered in her ear. "And you'll sing. Because you've looked into our lord's mind - I can see it. When we make the werewolf bark, you will gasp in delight. You will be our lord's more than you ever were, and if you hold a few reins about his wrists, he can pull on you, you can pull on him, until you tangle about each other, becoming one." Bellatrix stroked her hair gently. "I think you're perfect, love. You're quivering. But are you shaking in fear, Hermione?"

Hermione edged away, eyes watching Bellatrix as she slipped past Draco and Lucius so that she was looking into the cell at the four Death Eaters.

"You are insane, Bellatrix," Lucius said, adjusting his cloak disdainfully. "She is not for us."

"If she is for our lord, Lucius," Bellatrix said, "she is for us." Bellatrix narrowed her eyes at the man. "If you are against her, you are against our lord."

Lucius glared at her. Rodolphus stepped behind Bellatrix, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Macnair is in the lowest level of the dungeons where we keep beasts," he said, and he pressed his lips against Bellatrix's neck.

Hermione started down the aisle, paused, turned back.

She did not look at them, but she said, "Thank you."

Read? Review!

**Author notes:** In case you're interested, check out my livejournal community for Abyss/Ascent. There's a Carmen/Hermione/Voldemort ficlet that makes me blush which you might enjoy. It's NC-17, so I didn't link to it directly.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Title:** Ascent (09)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Remus Severus Medicus  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP, HBP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** Explanation for long sabbatical is in post-fic author notes.

As far as HBP, some things work, and some things don't. There won't be any blatant spoilers, but I might use elements of Voldemort's past or things like that.

**Chapter 9**

After months of self-imposed isolation, Hermione experienced a kind of mild culture shock, even claustrophobia. Diagon Alley was far too crowded for her taste. It was not what would be considered a good day as far as the Alley merchants were concerned, but Hermione still felt like cringing away from anyone too close to her. She was jumpy enough around the Dark Lord, but at least she could feel him before he entered a room. And of course, there was a man dressed in Death Eater costume, the diplomatic white stole over his robes drawing glares but no action.

Hermione earned more eyes than the Death Eater at her side – her Medicus robes were easily recognized among all those who read the _Daily Prophet_, and her profile by this time was quite considerable. Rumors were fodder for the masses – the masses were jackals, ready to be sold on any idea juicy and rotten, especially of someone so dreadfully close to their hero. Hermione was used to being studied, but this… collective malice was almost tangible, thin and terribly blunt, like beginner's knitting needles.

She slid into that open, sunny place that slid a veil between her emotions and her thoughts, and she walked through the downcast afternoon crowd – so bedraggled was the "crowd" these days, of course, in the middle of the war, Hermione had half forgotten. They parted for her. Some spat in her shadow, but most turned their heads and backs, slighting her. She did not mind; it gave her room. Macnair walked behind her so that she could only see his robes in her peripheral vision – she could push him out of her mind, leaving her mind remarkably clear.

Leaving the fortress was one of the best things she could have done, she decided. Just to breathe air that wasn't sharp with pine and higher altitude – to breathe smells of the city, dirt, mold, paper, salt, and the myriad of other smells from the shops. It brought back the times she had been in the Alley for the many early times, brought her back to a time when evil was external and distant rather than the very blood in her veins.

She did not have to linger for long where she was not welcome. All she needed in Diagon Alley was a public place in which to Apparate and the apothecary near the entrance of the Alley. She was meeting Severus in Knockturn Alley. The Aurors were watching the area like hawks, but with the shield of Medicus robes and the diplomacy stole, Snape could not be arrested, and neither Hermione nor Macnair could be impeded in their duties. It would be frustrating, and it would most likely be challenged, but she could count on the laws for enough on which to survive the next few days. Maybe she would take some time in the Muggle town outside of Remus's flat to leave this desolate community behind for a few hours. She doubted whether she could, though, not with a Death Eater escort.

The apothecary only carried the barest essentials of what Hermione needed. Murtlap essence for herself – she had used up the laboratory's supply and her hand was almost a claw now that she hid in her sleeve – five unicorn's horns that she would have to replace in a few months if luck was not with her, and a few of the basics that Hermione theorized she could always have more of. She had Macnair pay the gold for the purchases.

"We don't serve Death Eaters or their whores here," the manager said, looking down at the money as though it were finger bones and eye juice.

"Then it's a good thing you aren't serving the Death Eater and I'm no whore, isn't it?" Hermione replied, nodding down to the money. "I'm offering you the best business you're going to have all day… all week if this afternoon's sample is any indication of the regular population. You are dealing only with the Medicus Order, not those to whom they are bound."

"Bugger your high-flown declarations," the manager snapped. "You at the Dark Lord's right hand. Everyone knows that."

"Everyone knows nothing," Hermione said coolly. "Now if you would like this wizarding community to fall to the Dark Lord without any sort of struggle due to the prodigious aid of the entire Medicus Order on the Dark Lord's, I recommend that you do your business with me. And let me assure you, sir, this is no idle threat. I cannot do my work if the merchandise is unavailable to me. I could just take it – be thankful that I am paying."

The manager stared at her, face hard and forehead stubborn. However, he swept his hand over the counter and took the money. Hermione and Macnair walked out of the apothecary without any further trouble. Hermione could practically feel the raised eyebrow from Macnair under his hood.

"I don't have the time or patience to deal with every do-gooders' denial of my authority," Hermione said shortly. "If I did, I'd be gone for a week, and as preferable as that prospect would be, I don't fancy spending that much time on pointless bickering. There is no need to be impressed with me. Facts are facts."

"Who said I was impressed? I could just be amused," Macnair said, speaking up for the first time.

"I'm good at guessing," Hermione said, and she did not acknowledge him again until she was in the presence of her former Potions Master. She felt another stare of bemusement when she wrapped her arms around Severus's waist, hugging him tightly. Severus was unprepared for this strong display of affection, and his countenance turned annoyed, although it was likely that he did not mind the invasion of space that most would not dare attempt against him. He curled his lip at the familiar form of Macnair, and they kept Hermione between them as they walked through the dusty, deserted, crooked street.

Severus led her into a deserted shop and through a hidden and charmed trapdoor through which Hermione found herself in an ominously flourishing market place of Dark artifacts and ingredients. Severus used this venue for his own ingredients – the work of the good often crossed the line of acceptable – but Hermione was disconcerted that the wrong side was so… strong. She had seen the Death Eaters, new, old, recruits, those who were simply other followers, but that was within the fortress. In the realm of the ordinary, however…

Strange that in a world in which she was generally treated as an ordinary customer that she would be most uncomfortable. Severus made most of the arrangements once Hermione had given him the list – she would be prepared for certain merchants in future visits. Her service to Voldemort was becoming more material, therefore more real, and it made the back of her mind and the quickly pounding rhythm of her heart regress back to the original days when she was connected to the Dark Lord by more than fear.

There was a sort of ferocity about the way Severus handed her the unicorn's blood and the dragon scales and spine. It had not occurred to her that he might find this to be a return to his Death Eater and spy ways that he had reluctantly set aside. Hermione wondered if he resented his involvement. Her heart sank to her stomach in spite of the walls she built to protect herself from this sort of reaction.

She would not ask him to do this again. Hermione took his arm before he could take her to one of the other merchants for Dark crystals and guided him away, saying that she would do things herself from now on regarding illegal purchases. She would meet him in the Leaky Cauldron. Severus's scowl grew deeper.

"He's winning you," Severus murmured before turning on his heel.

"He's not," Hermione replied to his back. Severus would wait for her. The rest of the purchases, if her confidence would hold, only needed to take fifteen minutes or so.

She received some leers from the managers and merchants and predators, but the glimpse of the Dark Mark – which was still remarkably powerful and respected despite its widespread range these days – kept them from trying to accost her or steal her highly prized items. But she was also known for her face, the face that so many shunned and that they welcomed, for some of their faces were treated in the same way. The underground was the commons of the outcast – they were all Dark and despised together. Even Macnair was more at ease. And Hermione only became more and more uncomfortable as she was associated more and more with these people. She knew she was an outcast, but she had only ever been an outcast among those whom she loved. These… riffraff she had always thought were beneath her. It was a sobering mirror in which to look. She did not want to spend too long in the company of her terrible reflections. The Darkness within her shook its chains as the familiar mantra set aside for more peaceful meditations returned – _I'm not them, I'm not them, I'm not Dark, I won't be Dark._

For all her protests, she knew that her mantra would be – if it was not already – a lie very soon indeed. Perhaps she really was a servant of the Dark Lord because everyone believed it. Wasn't there a philosophy that reality is created by the perception and is changed accordingly to each public shift? Perhaps she had disappeared for so long as Voldemort's strength grew that people made the only logical conclusion. She could only imagine what Ron thought now – she had forgotten about her childhood friends despite all their help to her through the years after her imprisonment. Now, because of her absence and their coinciding failures had weakened their resolve that she was innocent and still on their side. Because maybe she was not. That thought made her face flush red with self-loathing and anger. Her Darkness liked this, liked the way that blood sang through her, feeding it. Hermione reigned her anger in as best as she could under the circumstances, nodded to the merchant from whom she made her last purchase, and hurriedly left the underground black market with Macnair close and quietly at her heels.

The surface was not happy to have her, but she preferred to be hated where she could feel like her old self. The claustrophobia of the Leaky Cauldron was nothing in comparison to her own repression. She could endure the stuffiness of pipe smoke and the smell of alcohol and dim mutters, snippets of gossip against her. She could endure.

Severus _was_ waiting for her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm not his, not like that," she said as she sat down. She gestured that Macnair should sit a few tables away. She did not pretend that he could not eavesdrop if he wanted to, but what she wanted to say wasn't private – she just wanted to lose her Dark shadow – that ever present reminder. After experiencing an afternoon with the man, although he was no real bother, she imagined that the reminder was one of the reasons that Voldemort insisted on an escort through public forum.

"Oh, stop fooling yourself, girl," Severus said, roughly sliding a glass of something strong toward her. Severus knew she did not drink strong liquor. He was livid, then. Hermione's lungs tightened. "That bloody wolf was right. There was always a part of you that was only his. He may have taken it, but it's his. You're his."

"No," Hermione replied. She was forceful but gentle. Resigned.

"You bear the Dark Mark and you doubtlessly wear the mark of your service on your body somewhere – I don't know where. You haven't looked in the mirror. You look… like you did before. Like you did when you were given back to us. Haunted, Hermione. You've slipped into your old role as easily as you've slipped into your new role."

"He does not have me. I'm still…"

"You're still what?" Snape spat.

"Myself. Me. My own," Hermione said in desperation to find the words of what she was and how she was not his. She _wasn't_. She _wasn't_.

"You delude yourself, Hermione. Look at you. You wave to a Death Eater so casually. You are uncomfortable in the realm of the ordinary. And I'm afraid that until you – _you_, Hermione – make peace with your new role that you chose, you will find no real help from me. I can give you street knowledge, but I'm not your friend. Understand that, Miss Granger. I'm not your friend."

"You were never my _friend_, not really. You know that. And it's not because I'm with him, is it? Because that's what he wants, and you wouldn't do that. You don't like to be reminded, do you? Do you see too much of yourself in me now. Because I'm not you." Hermione said, trying to catch her school girl earnestness – she had expected something like this when she came back, but not so soon, and certainly not from him. "He wants to tear me away from you, he wants my empty place to fester… like… like a tooth pulled badly." A twinge of pain at the memory of her parents.

"I'm afraid only you can tear yourself from your friends, Miss Granger," Severus said, standing up and throwing a few coins on the table to pay for his mead. "Finish your drink, pay for it, and go about your business. Understand, Miss Granger? I can accept you as Voldemort's Medicus when you stop pretending you're still ours. When you stop pretending that the Dark Arts never stopped calling to you, and now it has you."

"No."

"It's the cloak again. Except you don't feel it. Denial is the most disgusting form of forgetfulness. I recommend you throw your Medicus training away so that you're really just yourself. So that you can cringe. So that you can see him."

"No." The word was flat, indifferent. Caught in a twilight. Hermione felt numb.

"You are a blank parchment. Good day, Miss Granger." He Disapparated without another word. Hermione was left with a keen sense of loss, and the scent of pinewood – a smell rotten in her mind – lingered in the air where he had been. She could hear Macnair laughing at her, but she could not feel it on her skin.

Before Hogwarts, she had been just as overbearing as during her Hogwarts years, but like the first few weeks of her first year, she had no friends. She both felt the loss and dismissed it. Her books were a world in which she plunged, caught in them as she wandered through reality as though it were the imagination instead. She had nothing to miss but the thought of friends. When she had Harry and Ron, and Ginny and Neville and Luna and all the others, she suddenly had something to lose.

When she was taken from them, she pushed them into a cage, but she realized how much of her had been ripped from her heart when she returned to them, was given back to them.

Now, after several months separation, with the loss of Severus and the possibility of so many more people to lose, lost once already, she could feel herself crumbling, could feel the old cage turning to dust in the Dark things' claws. Strange how they could still tear inside of her when she had chained them down… strange unless Severus was right. And that scared her more than being the Dark Lord's Medicus, that he might have won, might have won her.

She could not be that. She _couldn't_. It was what she had fought for so long, for years, almost an entire decade. She did not want to make the newspapers right. She did not want to make Severus right.

Hermione left Macnair at the Leaky Cauldron with specific instructions that he was not to meet her again until she Apparated to him. He murmured that she still needed an escort, or why was he there?

"I've spoken with the Dark Lord about an escort, but he still insists on one," Hermione said, annoyed. "You can't come with me to the places I am going."

"If they are as welcoming as old Snape," Macnair said, "we should not have this problem again, eh?"

Hermione shut the door in his face.

Remus opened the door to see the background move as Hermione slid past him into the house.

"Shut the door," she hissed. "The press are vultures, and someone tipped them I was in Diagon Alley."

"Hermione!" Remus exclaimed. "What…?"

"Just shut the door."

"Okay, but…" He closed the door behind them, and Hermione removed her Disillusionment Charm. "What are you doing here?"

"Taking my much needed vacation from all things dark and evil and what have you. Is anyone else here?" Hermione said.

"One werewolf squatting in the living room," Remus said, eyebrows drawing together. "He's been here for a week, avoiding the Dark Lord's recruitments. But…"

"Please, Remus," she whispered. "I don't want to talk about business. Not now. Not after Severus…"

"Oh, God, what did he say? He's always too insultingly straightforward, always sees the Dark," Remus said, touching her shoulder.

"I know," Hermione murmured, folding into him and letting his arms wrap around her, needing contact, needing so badly. "And he's always too right."

"Hermione." There was a sort of earnestness in the way Remus said her name, and she pulled back.

"Not now, Remus. We can talk tomorrow morning. Not now." Hermione's eyes were wide and glittering. Remus felt the familiar pull in his stomach. He hated it when she cried, when he could see the dark pool in her pupils, when her face was shadowed. He touched her hair.

"Can I stay the night?" she asked in a small voice. She looked young.

Remus nodded, leading her into the flat.

_Ginny reluctantly gave her wand to Harry outside of Hermione's door at Hermione's request. Hermione heard the muffled password, 'Joan of Arc,' and she heard two people shuffle in. She faced the fire, curled in the cloak, curled in the corner of the sofa. There was a breeze in her hair as Harry and Ginny went around the sofa and sat down, Ginny on the other cushion, Harry in an armchair, the mediator._

_There was a thick silence, stifling. Hermione felt the anger coming from both Ginny and Harry, and she suspected that there had been an argument. Hermione knew how harsh Ginny could be under the right circumstances. Hermione was tempted to see whether there were any marks on Harry, but she was worried that she would giggle inappropriately – it was too easy to laugh when she wanted to cry these days. But she had cried too much for her to let herself cry here._

_Hermione would not be the first to speak. She had spoken her part – now was a time for questions. It was Ginny's call. She had wanted the meeting in the first place – Ginny was the one who had been curious beyond her judgment. Maybe that explosion in the Great Hall really had helped her, brought faded questions to the surface of the impressionable minds like oil spilled into water._

"_Can I see it again?" Ginny asked finally._

_Hermione was still wearing her pajamas, and she could easily slip her sleeve up to reveal the stark, black mark. Hermione felt the tips of fingers on the ink._

"_So you're for us?" There was skepticism in the question, but Hermione heard a sort of quaver in confidence._

"_Always have been," Hermione said, quiet and flat, still unsure of where Ginny stood._

"_What was it like? I mean… how did he… treat you?" Ginny asked. She was trying. Hermione would give her that. And Hermione imagined that remembering her time with Tom Riddle was just as distasteful to Ginny as it was to Hermione. She wondered how vivid the memory was for Ginny now – she wondered about nightmares._

"_I had a leash. Sometimes he would dress me up. But most of the time I was not allowed to wear clothes. I was to be lower than a house elf – the irony was too good to pass up for him. It was as though I were his private puzzle to take apart rather than put together. I was too interesting to him, too good of an opportunity for him to pass up as a part of the resistance against him. It was even better that he thought he could convert me. And I suppose he was close." Hermione tucked the edges of the cloak around her and thought of Snape's words. _Too close

"_It was different for me, although I… well, I was boring to him. You should have read what he wrote to me during the end. How much he insulted me, and how much he made sense," Ginny said, looking at her hands._

"_He's good at that. Taking information that's true and weaving it together against you," Hermione said. "Sometimes he made me feel worse than when he gave me to Wormtail."_

"_How did you…?" Ginny asked. She could not finish the thought. Hermione chanced a glance at her. She was flushed behind her freckles, and her lips were quivering slightly, lost in the past. Her cheeks looked fuller, younger. Hermione thought that maybe she looked like that._

"_I had to. I hated it, and sometimes I gave in, but I had to keep going, I guess. I couldn't imagine throwing myself to martyrdom. Maybe that makes me a bad Gryffindor," Hermione said. "Look, Ginny, I didn't have a choice. I was trapped in a world completely different from this one. Rules change."_

"_I know," Ginny whispered. "It's terrible, and I still hate what you did…"_

"_I hate what I did," Hermione said. "I hate it hate it hate it hate it… that's what's going through my head now. And because I hate what I did, I hate myself, too. It's like the Dark Mark, Voldemort, took what was left of me, took the insults, and made them true. Or maybe I made the insults true."_

"_He's evil," Ginny said, almost too quietly to hear. There was a grunt of agreement from the armchair. Hermione told him that he was not supposed to include himself in the conversation – he was just supposed to make sure they did not kill each other – but both girls appreciated the sentiment. "It's hard to tell when he's turning it on you. Or twisting it, I guess. He seems so reasonable until you look back on it and you see how wrong he is. Not what he said, but himself."_

"_Except you've changed. You've gone past it," Hermione said. She could almost hear Ginny dying to be convinced – maybe she had known and did not want to know. "I'm still here, still what he made me, and… with everyone like… like in the Great Hall… I'm not sure I can change. They didn't blame you when the diary turned out to be Tom Riddle. Dumbledore glossed over it, kept it quiet. My folly is out there for the entire world to see. It's… different. I killed – God, I killed. _I_ killed." She felt herself quiver and curled inward more tightly._

"_No," Ginny said. "He killed. God, it's so hard to remember that. I'm so sorry. He killed."_

Hermione let herself in through the front door with a key that Harry had made for her. None of the inhabitants were there – at work, she supposed. Hermione had counted on that. If Severus treated her the way he had, if that was really what she had become, then maybe it was best that Hermione give herself an hour or two to imbue the familiarity of the flat and try to brand it in her mind as a place of what could be called happiness. Before it could be denied her.

Remus slipped into the kitchen to make some tea for when Luna, Ginny, Harry, and Ron trickled in, a sort of peace offering. She could always count on Remus. She loved him a little, although it hurt to love like that, as though her heart was pulled in two different directions, as though she knew that she was to be torn from him – Severus had proved that.

She sat on the couch, looking around the open living room, the comfortable, plushy chairs, the brightly colored rug, the bits and pieces of Luna and Harry and Ron – Ginny was too meticulous with her belongings now. She drank it in, grasping a hold on friendship.

The moment almost lasted too long when the front door opened.

**Author notes:** Okay, I know everyone was concerned, and perhaps angry at my absence, so an explanation is in order. I hate it when writers do that, too, and I feel a little guilty for disappearing.

I felt an overwhelming pressure, but not the good kind. The good kind makes me want to write and gives me all these situations to write about. But this was the sort that completely killed my creativity. I felt like I had to finish too quickly because of the impending HBP and new canon - and when I look ahead at the end of Ascent, it seems very far away, and that scared me.

Also, I wanted to work on other things while summer still allowed me to spread myself into different territories. Anyway, it's school time again, I'm back to stay, Ascent is again an escape from school, and I feel less of a need to get everyone's approval - I just need to write for myself, and I had to learn that.

So I hope you liked the new chapter. There should be a chapter every week again, although there may be a few discrepancies due to school issues. :)


	10. Chapter Ten

**Title:** Ascent (10)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Medicus Harry Ron  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP, HBP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** Enjoy this chapter. Short, but I split Chapter 9 into two chapters, and this is the second part. It does its duty.

**Chapter 10**

There is a moment in life when one sees the future, and it is completely empty, a gaping void, with a golden pinpoint of light that seems infinitely too far. Unattainable. There are also times when all that can be conceived is the present. The slight echo from the hallway of her friends' laughter was an example of the latter.

Before they even saw her, she felt the indeterminable gulf of who she was and who they were. They could laugh.

_Though I walk through the valley of the shadow…_

She bowed her head and waited for them to see her.

It was the silence, not one of them saying her name, that alerted her to their discomfort. She looked up – they seemed so much younger. It occurred to her that she never looked in the mirror. She felt older than they were, much older. Ginny was beautiful, her cheeks flushed with the laughter from the halls. Ron had his bag over his shoulder and his face was clean. Harry… Harry would always look young, she thought. With shadows under his eyes. She wondered how he could stay so happy when he was the target of destruction, how they could ever have been happy.

When Ron saw her, he dropped his bag where he stood and left the room. Ginny winced at the rough sound, and Harry tried to grab his shoulder, but Ron shrugged it off. It did not hurt Hermione as much as she thought it would.

"Hermione," Ginny said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear and looking at anything but Hermione.

"Where's Luna?" Hermione asked.

"Still at work, I guess," Ginny said, taking her own thin bag and putting it on the table. "Sometimes she comes back at midnight, remember?"

"You read the papers too much, don't you?" Hermione said. She settled back, relaxing her stiff spine, and folded her hands in her lap.

Harry managed a weak laugh. "We don't believe the papers, if that makes you feel any better. It's just… strange. You look different."

"Yeah, I'm getting that a lot," Hermione said.

"Hermione, perhaps it's not a good…" Ginny began.

"I'm only here for the day. I'll leave this evening. You don't have to deal with this awkwardness any longer than that." She scooted over on the sofa, opening it to them. "I just… I don't want to live constantly around all that death and conspiracy and conniving and… god, too much evil. I practically bathe in it there. Really. It's… heavier than air."

"You sound different, too," Harry said.

"Things change, Harry," Hermione said. "I sounded different after the kidnapping, too. Voldemort stretches out his fingers, and we change, don't you get it? Look, Remus is in the kitchen, making us tea. Can we just have a day? Just one day? Something light-hearted, something that isn't about Lord Voldemort or books or what I have on my forearm? I need something that isn't about my loyalties."

Ginny and Harry shared a look.

"Sure," said Harry. "But… we'll talk this evening, all right? You can stay the night. But we do need to talk, I think."

Hermione's stomach tightened, but she nodded. She felt dehydrated.

Taking his cue, Remus walked in with the plastic tray and sat down next to Hermione, starting a conversation about how the last batch of Wolfsbane from the Medicus Order – Hermione had arranged a friend to brew it in her place – had worked fine, but left he and his squatter restless after the transformation back into human form. More than restless – practically running up the walls and across the ceilings, like catnip for a cat. The crux of the story was that Remus had written in to tell them to replicate the brewing process next month – Remus had never felt so good after full moon. Ginny giggled, and the ice cracked a little.

Remus' story led to an amusing anecdote from Ginny's work, something that was almost like a joke literally about a goblin and a troll walking into a bar. They managed to tell little stories about work – not Hermione, of course – while the afternoon whiled away. Harry did not talk much, and Hermione could only be on the receiving side of the conversations. The tea lasted even when it was cold – Hermione conjured ice and Remus left them to get dinner ready. There were a few breaks in conversation without Remus for warmth, but Ginny struggled for topics in the empty spaces.

Hermione felt Harry's eyes on her, his lips thinning in contemplation… or maybe judgment. Hermione thought that maybe Ron was in the hall leading to the two rooms, listening in, hearing Hermione's voice. Maybe he was thinking about their first kiss – wet, sloppy, awkward, but sweet. They had not been able to see much in the shadows except for a sparkle of light in their eyes. It was such a childish moment… well, not really. The brink, over the edge of childhood. Even for Ron, with his experience, if it could be called experience at all. There was a mutual earnestness. It wasn't great, and they never kissed again after that. But the moment hung over them whenever they interacted, like a benign mistletoe – at least until something new came between them instead. That was what lingered in the crevice between them now, the abyss. It made it hard to smile. She managed something more like a grimace, a smile that did not reach her eyes and was more a stretch and curve of her mouth. Harry noticed, she was sure.

She wished that they had kissed once more, at least in friendship, before she had been kidnapped. Maybe Ron would love her now if they had.

Hermione dismissed Remus's departure down the hall while they ate their dinner there in the living room as a need to use the lavatory. She tensed when he led Ron in by the shoulder and made him sit in an armchair some distance away from them. But there. Present. The air hummed with tension.

Remus managed to hold the rest of the dinner's conversation – made more difficult with Ron in the room – by asking Ginny details about her day and asking where Luna might be – which, as usual, led to stories about Luna's oddities, especially since Remus did not visit often and Luna was a cornucopia of amusement. At least for other people she was.

Although the mood became progressively lighter, Hermione felt herself sinking. She wanted to latch onto Remus's arm. She wanted to stretch out her hands and call for help. But to call for help was dangerous for her. It wouldn't be one of these strangers in the room with her who would come to her aid. She felt goosebumps raise the little hairs on her arm as a pair of deep red eyes glowed in the darkness behind her lids.

_Though I walk through the valley of the shadow… _Memories anachronistic, rushing through her head.

"Let's stop pretending," Ron said finally, interrupting Ginny.

_I will fear no evil._

But she did. And it was inside of her.

"Yes," she said, looking up finally, looking at Ron. "I think it's time to speak freely."

"You aren't coming back." The words did not come from Ron, but from Harry. They weren't malicious; they were simple, straightforward, resigned.

Resignation seemed to be what the war brought them to. The connection she once felt with them was gone, replaced with awkward silences and half-hearted diplomacy. The gulf hewn during both of her absences only deepened, and the shaky bridge her friends had built finally disintegrated. She was not sure how much she cared. God, she was going to cry because she did not care. But her eyes were dry.

"No, I don't think so," Hermione said.

"Why not?" Ginny asked, peering at her from Remus's other side.

"Hermione, I'm an Auror," Harry said. "It's my job to try to find Voldemort and kill him and his Death Eaters. I thought that we could… I don't know… maintain our friendship just for the sake of it. Because I still love you, as a friend. I think we all still do."

"I don't," Ron said. "Just for the record."

Harry ignored him.

"And I love all of you," Hermione said. "But this isn't going to work, is it?"

"Why not?" Ginny repeated.

"If she were really our friend, she'd tell us everything we needed to know," Ron said, talking into his pillow.

"Except I'm not just your friend any more than Harry is just my friend. If he's also an Auror, I'm also a Medicus. It all comes back to that, doesn't it? That our jobs outweigh our friendships." Hermione leaned back, away from Remus, away from her friends.

"It's not that you're a Medicus," Harry said. "If you were a Medicus to Ginny or Albus or even Snape, it would be all right. But the Auror Department is pressuring me to bring you in and interrogate you."

"They wouldn't dare!" Hermione said, bristling. Her socialization into the Medicus Order clearly had more than a little effect on her view of her place in the scheme of the wizarding world.

"Why not?" Ron said. "I would. If Harry wouldn't hex me if I did, I'd tie you up and throw away your wand. Then I'd pour a gallon of Veritaserum down your throat."

"Ron…" Remus began, but Hermione touched his arm to silence him.

"Do you know what would happen if that happened, Ron? It's happened before, you know. Harry doesn't do that because of friendship, but maybe I should tell you why, politically, that isn't a bad idea."

"I've heard the stories," Ron said contemptuously. "But what kind of damage would just the Medicus Order do if the Order of the Phoenix and the Aurors combined can't solve anything?"

"You clearly haven't heard the right stories," Hermione answered. She struggled not to be too cold. "Mind if I tell you the stories you need to hear?"

"Well, you've never really explained anything to us before," Ron said, "so you might as well do it now."

"You never listened," Hermione retorted. "Do you plan to listen this time?"

"Sure."

They glared at each other for a moment. Hermione looked away first. She did not want to fight. "The Medicus Order has strict rules regarding their arrangements with their clients – that's what it is mostly, especially to the public, a business arrangement. What happens is a whole lot more intimate – I swear I feel him all the time. I suppose I'm used to it now, but sometimes… anyway, it's not so easy to pull away or betray the one to whom a Medicus is bound. Veritaserum might not even work – I don't know, it's never been tested.

"But the Medicus Order wasn't originally meant for the full health of their clients. Medicus came later. They were originally female bodyguards, a concubine that also protected the man who took her. It started as a harem, and perhaps that is what sparks most of the rumors now. We're still taught the old defensive spells, the ones that have mostly been forgotten in modern circles. They're effective, often volatile and encompassing, more effective than most of the newer hexes, if less sophisticated. I could destroy this entire flat and the surrounding buildings with a hex and walk away unscathed, if a little singed. But I don't, because that's not what we do so much anymore, although part of our duty is to protect our client – not from everything, but from some things.

"As our name suggests, we're Healers more than bodyguards now, but our training lets us remember our roots and prepare for the first idiot who decides that we're women and ought to be taught our place in a world ruled by men who are stronger than we are. It's happened all of three times in history, and usually more than a hundred years spans the difference because it takes that long for a society to forget the damage done to it by the Medicus Order. The wizarding world has never been as connected as it is now, so I cannot imagine what attacking a Medicus would do to it. The word that comes to mind is desolation. It's like underestimating Muggles too much because they have no magic, and then they drop the atomic bomb. Desolation.

"In Saudi Arabia, one leader of a tribe had a Medicus – this one, although by this time the Medicus were no longer concubines, was his wife, so naturally, for a warring tribe to stab at the king, they kidnapped his wife and threw her in a hole filled with their excrement, holding her for ransom, for a compromise between tribes." Hermione took a drink of iced tea and realized that the tension in the room was no longer awkward, but the anticipation of a good climax – even Ron was paying attention, finally. Hermione restrained a smile and continued.

"The mark on her back that branded her a Medicus called to the rest of the Order, alerting them that the rules had been breached – it's an older magic, before wands, and I'm not sure how it works. Sort of like Legilimency and Apparation combined. Except… different, more primal than that. Maybe the Muggles have it more accurate with the collective unconsciousness and some people being more in tune with it. I don't know – it's been too long since those traditions were taught, and things get lost through the ages.

"The full strength of the Medicus Order coelesced into an army that swept through the tribe, burning buildings, taking children, slashing the throats of those who did not yield their homes. They did not stop until they found their fellow Medicus and cleaned her up, soothing her. They brought her back to her husband along with the head of the tribe leader and his wife of the opposing tribe. The children who were young enough to be integrated were given to the tribe and the ones who were not able to be given to the tribe were taken and dispersed through their network over the world, adopted in some cases, by the Medicus themselves.

"This happened in a night, and all on their own," Hermione said, looking at Ron. "Imagine what might happen in such a politically and globally charged war like this. Imagine what Voldemort could do with the Medicus Order at his side. Within a week, I swear you would be in a new world. And Voldemort would rule it. The result may be the opposite of the Medicus Order's desire – our first instinct is to preserve life, not to destroy it – it would not be countered by our own internal policies, because government means nothing to us as a whole. So if you were to do what you wanted to do, or if I were to tell secrets to you that would compromise my duty as a Medicus, that is what would happen. I would truly be helping him win the war – or you would. I don't think that is what you want, and I understand your sentiments, but you won't win the war through me. I can only hurt you."

Ron looked somewhat pacified, but he still had to have his last word. "That pretty much sums up what you do to us, doesn't it?"

"Damn it, Ron, are you just jealous because you didn't get under my robes before the Death Eaters did?" Hermione said. She was regressing back to adolescence as she said it, but unresolved aggression was enough justification for her. "Maybe you should be told once again that _I. Hated. It._ God, I was starving, in chains, tortured, watched my family go through the same things before dying, and you still want to think that I willingly spread my legs for them? It's you who is being unreasonable in this, not me. I'm past it. It's in the past. I'm different now."

"You're not Hermione anymore!" Ron yelled back. "When they made you… they took Hermione. I don't have to like that, and I don't have to like what you are now. In fact, I can hate it. I may believe your story now, but that doesn't change much." Ron curled his lip and stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"Don't forget to turn out the closet light," Luna said, opening the front door and catching the last bit of the conversation.

"Sure," Ron said. He was a blur of red hair in the shadow of the hall, and he reacted without thinking to a phrase that was practically normal for Luna.

"Hello, Hermione," Luna said. She sat in Ron's place. Her wide eyes stared at Hermione peaceably, as though Hermione dropping in uninvited was an ordinary occurrence. Hermione managed a weak smile at Luna's lime green business robes. "Do you want some cake? I made chocolate yesterday. And my desk had a few biting bagroots, so I'm stressed enough for chocolate. Cake?"

Harry looked at Hermione. "Do you want to stay for cake? You look like you can use all the food you can get."

Hermione ducked her head, staring at her nails. "That was my fault. Food wasn't a priority. I was actually forced to eat, if you can believe it." She gave a little laugh and looked up. "He's being… he's being Voldemort, but he hasn't hurt me, and he won't. Is that what you needed to hear?"

"It works," Harry said.

"Oh dear," said Luna, "are we splitting again?"

"No," said Ginny. There were no dramatics, no shocked whispers, just pure stubbornness. "He can't have you. You're just going to…?"

"I'm… it's complicated, Ginny," Hermione said, looking away. "He has me, and… he doesn't. I have him, and I don't." She tasted a lie, but she dismissed it.

"Isn't there some way out?"

"If there was a way out, don't you think I would have taken it?" Hermione snapped. She composed herself quickly. "I'm sorry, but I've put this off for too long. I'll have the cake. But then… I think… I should go."

"When will you come back?" asked Luna. "I'll make vanilla cake next time you come, and I want to be prepared."

This was one of those times that Hermione felt that Luna knew more and had more control over her mind than she let on.

"I don't know," Hermione replied. "When Voldemort is defeated, I guess. Or… the other way around. Maybe." She stood up, setting the pillow down and stretching her back slightly. "Chocolate cake?"

"You're just going to leave like that?" Ginny asked. Her cheeks flushed red, that classic Weasley trait. "You're going to leave and never come back?"

Hermione touched Ginny's shoulder, kissed her forehead on impulse. "Maybe," she said quietly. She went to Harry and repeated the action, acting on something forgotten before. Necessity. She went to Remus and kissed him, too. Luna caught her from behind and hugged her. It felt invasive to Hermione, but she endured it. She knew Luna meant well.

Macnair jerked awake when Hermione Apparated in his room. He grinned when Hermione looked away from his bare chest. He thought it would be amusing if he decided to seduce her, but he would not do that to his master. Hermione could see the spark of challenge in his eyes, but she ignored it.

"I want to go back," she said. "Show me how to Apparate there."

"Couldn't make it the whole two days, could you?" Macnair said. It wasn't a question, really. "What did they do? Kick you out? Was it any more than you expected?"

"No," Hermione said. "Show me."

"Show you what?"

Hermione whipped out her wand. She was tired and ragged, and she did not have the patience for mind games. Macnair laughed, raising his hands in mock surrender. He pulled on his shirt and Death Eater robes, doffing the stole.

He held out his arm, and although his eyes were laughing behind the mask, the blankness of his face made them more malicious.

"Take my hand," he said. "Remember how it feels for this particular Disapparition. You'll feel something different, a barrier which you can cross through where other people can't. That's what you'll focus on for every Apparition from now on."

"You couldn't have told me this before?" Hermione said.

"Then I wouldn't have the pleasure of your company," Macnair replied. He Disapparated them without warning.

Voldemort knew when she arrived, knew the sort of emotional coldness that had settled into her body after the assault of revelations. He opened the door to her room and peered in at her. She was in her bed, a place that she not frequented most of the months she had been working with his notebook. She was tucked in a little ball facing away from him, her Medicus robes stretched taut along the curve of her shoulders, back, and buttocks. He had a feeling that if he walked over to her and touched her face, it would be dry but cold.

From a shift in her movement, he knew that he had been noticed, the presence of his mind felt more strongly by their renewed proximity.

"Welcome back, child."

In her state, it was all he needed to say.

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**Author notes:** There were things that I really liked about this.

As you can see, I provided the much needed Medicus Order history, the inevitable parting of ways, and the return of Voldemort in her life - if he ever left.

Hope you enjoyed it!


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Title:** Ascent (11)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Medicus  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP, HBP  
**Summary:** Sequel to Abyss: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** I profusely apologize for the lateness of this chapter. University conspired against me, and I had to delete about 1700 words and rewrite. However, I _have_ been writing every Friday. I just haven't been able to finish. headdesk

I'm very pleased with this chapter, and I hope you like it, too.

**Chapter 11**

Her laboratory steamed with the smell of herbs and burnt blood, but she did not mind the way it saturated the room with its thickness. A few Freshening charms could fix the permeation in a second. Still, she liked to wander through the sleepy warmth of the fumes as she waited between each instruction for her potions and powders. She forgot about her murtlap essence – her hand eventually healed, and it turned stiffer than usual. However, she did not really notice after months of struggling through it during her note taking. Her fingers were still steady, and she could brew her potions and stir in her ingredients just as easily as she could before.

Voldemort was there. Always there. He hummed through her like electricity, he lingered in the doorway as still as a poised serpent, she could hear his footsteps. He did not speak to her, but he liked to watch as she concocted experiments made for him – _his Medicus_. His breath frosted the glass of her body, like beryl, the old slightly distorted mirror image. She reflected back to him, closing her mind with metal doors, although he felt the swell and ebb of her consciousness as she slept and woke.

She was uncomfortable at night, drifting about in the pungency of her potions, drawing at her memories and nightmares. When she was asleep, he could catch glimpses of himself… not reflections, though. Swirls of cloak and glowing eyes, a flash of green light juxtaposing on the glittering red, fires and forests and chains. She twitched in her sleep, biting down on her tongue sometimes, eyelids fluttering like mad when he slid into her mind.

When she was awake – in the literal sense of the word – he did not come too close, just far enough for her to be aware, but not to engage. She never walked outside, even though the air was beginning to cool again, fresh and sharp in the breeze. She simply walked through fumes and lost herself in work, like she had before, except this time her work was practical, and Voldemort could not help but take pleasure in her new fervor. Even as he walked through his fortress, marshalling his followings in preparation, he felt the tight coil of her under his ribs. Always in the back of his mind, _his Medicus_. Constant awareness. He would never admit it aloud, but he was frightened of this preoccupation that seemed to have spiraled out of his control. Her coil. Her reluctant acceptance and service. She was his, but he was the one drawn in to her closed intensity.

But he still had hold on her. He could see that in the way she tensed at the opening of her door, her singular fear of him. No, not singular.

She feared herself. He liked the taste of that.

The window was open. She curled under her quilt, shivering like a child, slowly slipping away from sleep under protest. Sweet, cool air from the teasing of autumn broke into the thickness of her misery and stubbornness and cleared her head. There was warmth, scent, but it was diffused through nature, and when she opened her eyes, they were not clouded through the haze.

It made her want to close her eyes and hide under the bed again, but with the light and air coming in, she could not hide within her mind or under her covers. So she went out to the birds, letting the forest air purge the thick tendrils of dark smoke from her lungs. She could watch the flocks of birds come through in their migratory trek. There were always the occasional flock that forgot that the fortress was forbidden territory, and she tried to ignore the litter of burnt carcasses on the edge of the forest from target practice and wards. Autumn would bring protein to the fortress's denizens.

She used to love autumn – not least because the beginning of fall meant that Hogwarts started and she could be with her friends and her professors and her library again. She supposed she still loved it, but the clarity of her mind was something that she did not want – it made the sounds of slowly closing doors and sighs too loud and she could not help but see the hard angle of Harry's jaw before he closed the door after her. When she was lucid, she missed them too much, missed Harry and Ginny and Luna and Remus and Severus and even Ron with his tenuous cold shoulder. And the strange thing was that, despite the fact that she missed them, she was not terribly sad, and this realization was what filled her with the shame that made her want to be drunk. She had tried that once, before Remus took her to the Medicus Order. She was not a pleasant drunk – in fact, she was downright maudlin after drinking – but at least the things she worried about then were insignificant, like a knot in Crookshanks's fur or a chip in paint. Certainly nothing so pertinent as the fate of the world. Or herself.

A tendril of pain in her forehead from the brisk change, and she brought her fingers to her temples to rub them. It seemed to be a beautiful afternoon despite her confusedly stark state of mind and the part of her so deeply disconnected from her situation surfaced – that strong, flinty self that managed to survive fire and brimstone when it put itself to the task. Hermione thoroughly hated that part of herself because when it came up, she felt like she could watch the world burn and go about her business peeling oranges or something mundane and callous like that. A necessary thing, it was, though.

The headache was still there. She sat down on the grass and rubbed harder at the pain. She lay back on the ground and closed her eyes so that the sun glowed dark rose through her lids. A flash of red from the pain.

Oh.

There was a hum, not through her Dark Mark but through her head, like bees buzzing on the other side of the fortress. She had grown so accustomed to his presence around her mind like a sheer scarf that she had not recognized the sharper edge of his need as separate from her own. He never called her this way before, if it was even a call. As she walked up the hill again, she continued to rub against the headache even as she tried to reach out with her honed skills to tell what the trouble was. Unfortunately, her distance was a problem in lieu of the strength of his mental defenses, years of psychic training and mastery of his mind. Of course, Voldemort might have disagreed with her assessment – she would never know how far inside of his mind she really was – but she still believed that her connection to his mind was the shallowest sort of delving.

As she approached their corridor, however, her headache worsened, throbbing dull needles behind her eyes. It was his pain that she was feeling, she knew that; however, she did not want to throw open the door to his chambers and hit him over the head with a plank to knock him unconscious so that she could see properly through her eyes. Vaguely, she realized that her focus was a sign of recovery from her melancholy, but she wanted to get rid of the pain first.

She went through her chambers first, through the thick, hypnotizing scent, like walking through transparent fog. Then through her bathroom and his before she gently opened the door that led to his living area. She heard other voices, Death Eaters, murmurs both harsh and placatory, and she tried to determine their identity from behind. Macnair, that was easily – his shoulders were too broad to be anyone else. Rodolphus and Bellatrix, a rough-and-ready man who she did not recognize, and, oddly enough, Draco. He looked comparatively thin, even though he and Hermione were about the same age and adults by now. There was also a woman, skinny and crisscrossed with new pink and old ivory scars along her bare arms and the glimpses of her pale moon face. But those robes… in the dim light, Hermione could see that the robes were the deep Medicus blue with the silver crest in the corner.

Voldemort turned to her as her hand curled around the door. Tension along his forehead smoothed slightly, and he beckoned her in, continuing his instructions to the Death Eaters. The Medicus on the armchair looked up, timid, but curious. Hermione thought she might recognize the woman, but she could not place a name to the face. She knew that the woman was a werewolf, though – she had known Remus and his squatters too long to not recognize the signs. Hermione also recognized the claim between the Medicus and the shaggy-haired Death Eater who she did not know. Their heads turned around at the intrusion, but Voldemort drew their attention back as Hermione approached them.

Voldemort extended his hand out to her through the small group, a fan and curl of thin fingers, emphatic and subtle at the same time. Hermione accepted the hand and slid between the Death Eaters so that she was behind him, leading him to a chair. He did not stop his instructions on factions in various parts of Britain, but Hermione tried not to listen to him. She sat on the arm of the chair where she pressed him down, and under the gaze of all the Death Eaters, she pulled her wand from her sleeve and pressed it against Voldemort's head. As the warmth replaced their collective headache, they both breathed out with an inaudible sigh. It was only a slight pause in the discussion between the Death Eaters and Voldemort, and Draco talked through the pause.

Hermione noticed that the other Medicus was watching her with a hard light in her eyes from the fire, a spark of understanding. Hermione wanted to look away, go away, anywhere but here where so many eyes flickered with amusement, bemusement, perusal of this dynamic between their master and the girl that they had never seen before. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Macnair, and the wilder Death Eater seemed to take it as a matter of course, although somewhat entertaining, but Draco watched her intensely, eyes narrowed with what could have been confusion or deliberation.

Let him look as Hermione stood to leave. Let him look as Voldemort grasped Hermione's wrist and made her sit on the arm of the chair again. Let him look as his hand slowly released her. Let him look as she simply sat there, waiting, trying not to listen but listening all the same. The plans that Voldemort laid were impersonal – it was not a vendetta that he pursued, but something terribly practical, attacks here, here, here, and here, undistinguishable from expected or natural disasters, although wizarding authorities would recognize the debris of a faded Dark Mark and other magical patterns unique to Voldemort's cause. Rodolphus would lead in a few dementors and let them feast on souls like truffles – just enough for an impact, but not too greedy – let them see the bodies walking without purpose, eyes like glass, among the broken pieces of humanity around them.

Hermione looked away toward the fire, lost herself in the perpetual, changing movement, but still Voldemort's words and the responses from his followers burned with the fire into her brain. But her mouth stayed shut, and any protest was caught under her tongue as she saw the hard angle of Harry's jaw and heard a door close.

As the Death Eaters readied themselves to leave the meeting, the Medicus on the other armchair stood up and handed a stiff piece of parchment to Hermione. A flutter of eyelash as their eyes met, then she followed the unknown Death Eater out of the room.

There was silence as Voldemort moved through the chambers, and Hermione was violently brought back to a time when she was chained to his bed post as he ignored her. The memory was blurred, and Hermione felt it did not have the same impact as it once did. Then she sat on the floor. Now she was upgraded to an armchair.

"Is that all you need, Lord Voldemort?" Hermione asked, feeling prim and awkward on the arm. She was conscious of the way her head inclined so that her eyes followed the swirls of gold in the maroon carpet. Outward subservience typical for her station, but of the sort that seemed both pretentious and deprecatory.

"Do _you_ need anything from me, Hermione?" Voldemort asked. He straightened and looked at her at an angle, pensive.

"No," Hermione said. "It's just… I was waiting to leave. You held me here."

"For Medicus Martin's benefit, not mine. The few Medicus here have been interested in your welfare because they have not seen you with me through the fortress. Katherine was a messenger for them. Like you, she is an exceptional Medicus – she does not have a permanent contract, but it is an indefinite one – which is fortunate for my Death Eater, who, in his line of work, suffers many injuries that could be fatal without a Medicus's hand. And in his condition… well, Medicus Martin is the best Medicus for him. As you have been said to be for me." Voldemort watched her reaction closely, countenance closed and almost old and drawn tight around the eyes and brow.

"So that Death Eater was a…"

"Werewolf. The leader of the Dark creatures who have joined me. It would not do for him to suffer other maladies other than the one he treats as a gift." A sweep around the armchair before halting just behind her so that she had to twist her waist to look up at him. She felt his manipulation, but she was unsure how to counter it other than petulance, which she found harder to come by after the last few months.

"So you are finished with me."

"Of course not."

"For tonight?"

"You may leave if you would like," Voldemort replied.

"I have no reason to leave," Hermione said softly, "but I will retire to my chambers. There are potions that need to be tended to, and I should air the rooms out a bit if I am to continue my work properly. I ap- I've been distant."

As she stood, she felt the powdery brush of fingers against her right temple.

"I take it that your foray into the wizarding community was more trying than you expected," Voldemort said.

"You knew perfectly well it would be, as did I," Hermione replied, facing him again. "There is no point in playing coy with me. I know these games by now – I'm almost insulted you still play them."

"I only play because you still have not learned all the rules or your potential as an opponent," Voldemort said.

"I'm not an opponent," Hermione said.

Voldemort did not answer her, but there was a hint of a curved mouth as she stared thoughtfully to the left of him.

She sighed. "Anyway, if you are really through with me for the evening, I'm going to leave. Although once the potions are ready, I will need for you to set aside an evening for me. You will need time to recover from them."

Voldemort began a measure of sharp hisses, and Hermione jumped, but the dry brush of snake's scales on the carpet alerted her to Nagini's presence. Hermione took that as a sign to leave Voldemort to his odd tasks for the afternoon.

He bent down to lift Nagini to his mouth, but before he engaged in the traditional milking, he stopped Hermione at the door.

"Yes." Just the affirmative, but it spread a sort of warmth and relief akin to the cure of the headache, and Hermione berated herself for such an irrational reaction. She gave a sort of abrupt half-bow and slipped through the door into his lavatory toward her rooms.

Voldemort made a noise in the back of his throat as Nagini latched to his tongue. It could have been a growl or a protest, but it could have also been a hum or a purr. As he staggered to his bed to sleep away the affects of the venom, which were stronger than it used to be nine years ago, he thought that, eventually, he may yet be pleased with his Medicus as much as Hermione.

Katherine Martin was spread on Hermione's bed, hands folded on her stomach like a child. Only her eyes moved as Hermione closed the door to her lavatory. Seeing a stranger in her room startled her, but she recovered quickly and waited for the Medicus to explain herself.

"It's in the note," Katherine said, "but I thought I'd come here and eliminate the need for passive reading. You seem like you need some company."

"I don't remember you, but I think I've heard of you," Hermione said.

"Everyone seems to have heard about me. Like everyone knows your name. Both of us seem to be Medicus who don't quite fit in the system. There aren't very many cursed Medicus. I'm one. You're another."

"I'm not cursed," Hermione said.

"Not with magic – not really, anyway," Katherine replied, looking at her left forearm, and Hermione thought she understood. "Is he… are you all right with him? I know how it feels to be… trapped in an awkward place with your client."

"It doesn't… it hurts still, but… not as much," Hermione said, sitting down on her couch and curling her legs under her so that she could arch her back to look at Katherine. "I feel… After I left to get supplies and be with people who I knew before, it was strange to be around people who could smile and talk about Quidditch and what they were going to have for dinner that night. I don't know how Harry goes through life."

"He doesn't live with the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters," Katherine said matter-of-factly. "And despite the Dark Lord's focus on him, he has not been the center of his very unusual attention. I cannot say that your experience is anything like that of Harry Potter's. You have dealt with your turmoil in the way best suited to you. You are a Medicus. He is an Auror now. Friends go down different paths. You know this."

"We managed until I had to come back." Hermione looked out the window at the light blue sky – it was not as vivid as it had been that morning, but it was like a different world, or a screen. "This was never the path I wanted to take."

"Sometimes we don't get to choose, Hermione," Katherine said.

"How can you say that? How could you have decided to come here to a man like… that?"

"A werewolf?" Katherine said frostily.

"Don't put words in my mouth. One of my friends is… was… is a werewolf. What I meant was that he was a Death Eater _and_ a werewolf, which is a dangerous combination, especially if that man is who I think he is?" Hermione felt her arms grow cold. She remembered.

"Because he needed me," Katherine said. Her voice was quiet, not angry like it could have been. Had Hermione still been in the Medicus headquarters, she might have been dragged into a spirited and furious debate, but she sensed that such a thing would not happen here. "Isn't that enough?"

"Don't you wish sometimes…?"

"Yes. When we change. And when he feeds without the change. There are things that I truly hate about him." Katherine sat up in the bed and crossed her legs. "But… there are other things. I suppose you know that. Aren't there things about the Dark Lord that make you still?"

Hermione thought of the cloak and of burning it, and she did not answer. Katherine saw the furrowing between Hermione's eyes. "Doing your duty is nothing to be ashamed of. It's what you are. But hating him is nothing to feel guilty for either. You can hate him and want to help him at the same time. You aren't evil for healing evil. It's like blaming spring for a glut of flies as well as the birth of young animals. You are doing good here. Remember that."

"How can I do good by helping evil? It doesn't make any sense," Hermione said angrily.

"Am I evil?" Katherine asked, mellow blue eyes passive.

"I don't know."

"It's hard to believe that what I do is evil when I can stroke his head to make him sleep. Or when he thanks me. Nothing can be completely evil, if it can even be called evil at all," Katherine said.

"There's evil," Hermione murmured. The library pulsing with magic, the Darkness within her that she fought against, the Dark Mark. "The Dark Lord is evil."

"He is sick," Katherine said, standing. "That is evil. He is waiting for me, and I need to go. But… I know how you feel when you can't go back to your friends. If you need to, you can come to us. Mel and Lillian are often about and easy to find. And where he is in the fortress, I will be – by necessity, I have to be near him."

"Thank you," Hermione replied. She was not sure if she meant it, but there was a sort of tranquility in her head after talking with Katherine, so maybe there was some sincerity.

Katherine touched her forearm gently. "Really – I can understand if you let me. And a Medicus sometimes needs a Medicus of her own." Hermione sensed the pain behind Katherine's statement, and she let the woman touch her without jerking away reflexively.

Before Katherine closed the door behind her, she whispered through the crack, "He's waiting for you."

Hermione looked at the door in which Voldemort sometimes stood. He wasn't there. When Hermione turned back around, Katherine was gone.

Her Dark Mark was humming.

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**Author notes:** Gee, I wonder who Katherine's client is? At least within the context of HBP. I still thought that there would be a leader of the beastly side of the Death Eaters, so consider this part of that original thought. :)

Hope that you enjoyed it!


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Author's Notes: **I'm sorry for the months-long delay in this chapter. After I complete this semester, I hope to finish _Ascent_ completely during the summer. Just rest assured that, no matter how busy I become, _Ascent_ will be completed. I don't, however, have the luxury of time now that I'm in university.

A lot of this chapter makes reference to _Abyss_ and previous chapters in _Ascent_. If you need clarification, you can either look it up yourself or ask about it in your review, and I'll be happy to answer anything for you. I had to look all this stuff up, too. g Hope you enjoy the chapter!

**Chapter 12**

The windows were finally open to counter the sweltering oppression of the potions fumes. The cold air also helped Hermione avoid her bed, which was unmade and unslept-in under a window, as she worked furiously on completing the potions. Her stomach tightened painfully at the thought of the next day during which she would administer the first batch – she had no idea how it would affect him, how he would be weakened or how he might be altered. She was trapped in a situation without precedent. But she had done that before, she thought with a small grin, and underneath the butterflies, anticipation curled contentedly. She appreciated that she _could_ enjoy even a small bit of her work without falling prey to any Dark laboratory or being insulted by an absent Potions professor or having to endure the knowledge of spies watching her every move. And with her mind clearer than ever, with her work temporarily taking priority over her hesitation, she could not help but settle, sleepy and satisfied, back into her chair as she stoppered the last flask.

She caught her eyelids drooping and mind drifting when she heard a knock on the door. Muttering good-natured curses – she hadn't felt so good in eight months – Hermione forced herself from the straight-backed chair and pulled the bolt.

Her legs tightened instinctively, and she clutched the door knob to ground herself as the blood rushed from her head.

"Are you… are you feeling all right?" Wormtail asked.

Hermione brought a hand to her head to steady the dizziness. "I… yes, I'm fine. You startled me."

Wormtail looked at his hands; the silver was half-hidden under his cloak, but in the indirect light of the fire and candles, it almost seemed to be gold. As usual, he could not quite look at her, and as usual, Hermione wondered whether (or maybe hoped) it was guilt, although he treated everyone else the same way. He made her as nervous as ever, but he seemed to be making an effort to keep an appropriate distance between them. Had he been anyone else, she might have been touched, but as it was – as it always was – her mind only brought his smell, his breath, his voice to her mind. There was a different sort of confidence, though, when he treated her with the deference due her status, reminiscent of an old feeling, perhaps. It contrasted with the strange petulance with which he greeted her when she first came back as Voldemort's Medicus. It struck her that this was only the second time she saw him before her since she arrived.

"I a-apologize for disturbing you so late, but… you see… you know people never really s-sleep here." He ducked his head as Hermione waited for him to come to his point. "Some of your old schoolmates want… want to talk with you… if you could. In the audience chamber."

"For torture or pleasure?" Hermione asked. She was only half-wry.

"They didn't tell me," Wormtail said – one split second of eye contact, and his eyes darted away again. "They know better. They should."

"I was half-joking, but I suppose they do," Hermione replied. Her head tilted to the side as Wormtail grew more restless. "Are you… is something wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong," Wormtail said.

"You just decided to be messenger in the middle of the night acting the part of the paranoid?"

"The others, they may like the night, but I… I don't particularly," Wormtail said. "And I guess you know things are getting worse. Not for us, of course, but… more aggressive on the front itself. I don't do that. It's not so easy for me to be a part of the ranks."

"Yes, I remember that." Hermione hesitated before stepping back. She wanted to ask him if he had any more bursts of courage but desisted as she retrieved herself from the past. "Tell them I'll be there in a few minutes, but that it's to be a short meeting. Tomorrow is an important day for me and I was just about to go to… to sleep."

"You look tired," he said. Hermione did not know how he could tell when he was not even looking at her, but she nodded slowly.

His silver hand flashed as he reached out to her, and she twitched violently before she could stop herself. She felt a slight pressure on her shoulder and saw that he was removing a large weed leaf from her robes, which he discarded on the carpet when she rolled her shoulder away. His face flushed – he was never good at hiding his emotions – Hermione could not imagine how he managed to act the traitor without anyone knowing.

"Well, good night, then."

His body bent in an awkward bow, and he hurried down the corridor, his cloak blowing out behind him. Hermione's brow furrowed and she shook her head as she closed the door.

"_Well, the son of the bitch got the first part right, Granger. How does it make you feel to know you've done the Dark Lord's dirty work?"_

"_Like shit. Get out."_

The last time she had been in the audience chamber, Death Eaters, Black Dogs, and Cat's Paws swarmed wall to wall, split by the carpet leading to the throne – both shouts of glee and horror, hissing of whispers and spells, sounds had ricocheted over the walls and the ceiling in spite of the warm bodies to absorb them. The room was empty now, dark but for the moonlight coming through the skylights, and the throne itself was empty as well. The low purr of mutterings was the only thing that broke the silence, and it took her a moment to recognize the moving shadows on the dais as the young Death Eaters – not so young now – waiting for her. As she came closer, their faces became clearer, although their expressions remained obscure, hidden underneath ambivalence and downright curiosity.

"Where's Morag?" Hermione asked before anyone could say anything.

"She died five years ago," Lisa said, staring at Hermione as she lay on the ground, her head upside-down on a stair. "I swear it was in the _Prophet_."

"I wasn't reading the _Prophet_ five years ago," Hermione replied.

"Head in the sand, Granger?" Lisa asked. Her grin looked surreal in the angle of strange blue light.

"Studying. I do that a lot, if you remember, and it helps to sequester myself in a library away from distractions. Besides, the _Prophet_ is rubbish, you know that."

"The way I hear it, you haven't stopped," Lisa added. "Isn't that where you've been? Doing your homework for the Dark Lord? Again?"

Hermione crossed her arms over her stomach. "Yes."

"Are you ashamed of us?" Lisa asked. She sat up and turned around, almost coy.

"Cold." She had thrown on a cloak, but without the usual crowd in the huge room, she felt her nose and chin freeze.

"You could always try a Warming Charm," Draco said. She couldn't see his face at all from where he sat against the side of the throne.

"I'm fine," Hermione said.

"Your blood is showing, love," Blaise murmured.

"For being economical with my magic?" Hermione said with a wry smile.

"Magic is a bottomless well, Granger," Draco said. "Over a decade of studying magical theory and you haven't learned that yet?"

"Just because you haven't tapped out before does mean that I don't know what it is to experience a magical strain," Hermione said. "Magic has a limit – you can't reach the end of it, per se. You don't have a certain amount of magic allotted for each day. But there _is_ a bottom, and you're only flesh and blood while magic has neither constriction."

"Sounds like superstition to keep the Mudbloods in control," Theodore said. "I was certainly never taught that."

Hermione snorted. "Sure you were. You just don't realize it. Can everyone use the Unforgivables?"

"No," Draco replied. "It requires…"

"Passion. Really wanting to hurt, control, or kill someone. The real powerful spells, they need an additional power behind it, or else there are only sparks or something like that. Empty magic." Hermione tucked her cloak more tightly around her. "Don't tell me burnouts don't exist – I've experienced them before."

"So you have some power, then, beyond the petty displays we used to see in class," Draco said. He bent forward, although he was not really looking at her, and the light shined on his cheekbone and chin.

"For all the high standards you seem to hold against me thus far, Draco, I have to ask if _you're_ beyond the petty displays we used to see in class," Hermione said quietly. "Or are there to be reprises of the faux pas at dinner?"

"You wouldn't."

"You're right," Hermione said. "I understand humiliation. I wouldn't. He would."

"See, that's the thing, Granger," Draco said. "I've thought about this – Father told me about the Medicus traditions… but why? The Dark Lord has more magic, more than any of _them_ could possibly imagine. He could decimate the world if he chose to. I've seen it. I don't think even you know just what he can do."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I'd have to, wouldn't I?" Hermione said. "Magical binding, remember?" Draco was quiet for a minute.

"So you know then. But how does that help you or the Medicus Order should the Dark Lord decide to step aside for us to do what we do best to you?" He came out of the shadows, and Hermione saw the same thoughtful expression on his face as in Voldemort's chamber. "You were supposed to come back. But not like this. Not with the Dark Lord wrapped around your little finger."

Hermione tried to hold in a laugh, but it came out a cough. "I don't have him wrapped… He's cautious."

Lisa narrowed her eyes. "Why does he need you anyway?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Hermione snapped. Lisa curled her lip and made to grab her wand before realizing that she couldn't.

"How about you tell us instead?" Blaise said. He stretched out his legs lazily. "We're all settled in for hibernation, so it isn't as though you're leaving any time soon."

"I do need to leave," she replied.

"I mean the fortress, Granger."

"Confidentiality clause."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Convenient."

"Yes, convenient," Hermione said. "It's only been in use since before they called it a confidentiality clause."

"I don't think a year was long enough. Maybe if Wormtail had had you instead of the Dark Lord, you might have turned out properly."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying he failed?"

Lisa opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again.

"I don't think he failed," Draco said. "You're still working for him, aren't you?"

"You could say that," she said slowly.

"And…" He searched her eyes. "I don't think you're squirming about it."

She did not say anything to that. Now she _was_ beginning to shiver – why did the room have to be so cold? With the demeanor of a person who Hermione did not recognize, Draco drew his wand and cast a Warming charm.

She did not have to say thank you, but something between them relaxed a bit, like it had when she was chained to the laboratory table.

Draco sat back in the darkness.

"You look better than you did in that dungeon cell," he said.

"Being a Medicus may not be what I like… or want… or need," Hermione said, "but it's what I do." She was not sure if she quite believed herself, but Severus's admonishment in the Leaky Cauldron seemed to come to her more often these days, especially as the evergreens around the fortress slowly became the only color along the line of the mountains.

_I can accept you as Voldemort's Medicus when you stop pretending you're still ours. When you stop pretending that the Dark Arts never stopped calling to you, and now it has you._

_It's the cloak again._

She still did not believe him, completely. They had a lot in common these days, but he still clung to the past that separated them. Besides, healing was her art.

"Just what will you do for him?" Draco asked. "What can you offer our lord, with your facts and power and Gryffindor persistence?"

The doors creaked as they opened in the silence between his question and her answer. Hermione whirled around. Wormtail was dwarfed by the high opening, and it looked as though he had completed his previous errand. The hood of his cloak had been pushed back, and his mannerisms were less anxious.

"The Dark Lord wants his Medicus back in her room," he announced. The other Death Eaters stared at him until he left. Hermione turned back to them as she released her cloak and shifted uneasily.

"He still makes your skin crawl," Lisa said, grinning.

"He makes anyone's skin crawl," Hermione said. "I need to go."

"You never answered my question," Draco said, and Hermione paused.

"_If_ the occasion called for it, I'd die to help him. It's a rarity – the Medicus Order prizes its women more than it prizes human sacrifice," Hermione replied. "But it's what I do. I still wish that the Oracle had forgotten me, or that I had denied the summons." She felt like she lied, and her mind dwelled on the completed potions.

"And what about you, Draco? Are you still your father's son?"

"Are you questioning my loyalty, Granger, as though _you're_ properly loyal to him?" Draco asked.

"I'm just asking if you're going to be a problem, if you object to me as the Dark Lord's Medicus." Hermione waited for the answer as she let his thoughts draw the room's attention. She wished she could see his face, and she realized she was listening for his approval.

"I think," Draco said slowly, "the Oracle chose the right girl. You belong here, acting in this capacity. Or on the floor. But he'll take what he can get from you, and I think you're getting exactly what you need, Granger."

She felt her jaw clench from a finally familiar Draco, but it was no less than she expected, and it did not affect her like it used to. She had heard it too many times, many of those times in her own head; they were just words.

"I need to return to my chambers," Hermione said.

"Sweet dreams, Granger," Blaise called after her, looking thoroughly entertained.

"Likewise," Hermione said. Words. No one else said anything, although Hermione thought that Draco nodded to her in the dark, and she left the audience chamber after a length of carpet that seemed to go on forever. Once she was in the corridors with their dim lighting and welcoming closeness, she felt her neck and shoulders relax.

Once she closed the window over her bed, she applied a Warming charm on the quilts before lying down, cocooning herself in. She thought that after winding herself up in the audience chamber she would not be able to sleep as easily as she had at her work table. But the warmth caught up to her, and she fell asleep.

It was early evening when Hermione knocked on the door between his bathroom and his chambers. She clutched the handle of the box that held the potions, but she was not as nervous as she thought she would be, especially after her last evaluation with him. She was anything but frozen now, and as much as she wanted to be afraid – it would be familiar, and she would not feel as though the fortress had assimilated her with the rest – her entire body felt nothing but stillness. Her Dark Mark hummed slightly. She had his permission to come in.

Voldemort waited for her on his bed. He wore his robes open over trousers, for her if the potions included unguents or if she needed skin contact. Nagini shifted against one of the posts and eyed her coldly.

"You will have to stop taking her venom after this," Hermione said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "Do you have all evening and tomorrow morning? Possibly longer?"

"I have however long I need – my Death Eaters have been given instructions into the next week. Should they require assistance, they'll speak to me through Carmen." His jaw tightened, but Hermione did not think that it was because of Carmen. If anything, Hermione thought that Voldemort was more anxious than she was – her work for the next few months to years required experimentation, but his was the body that would suffer and transform for it. His was the image that would seem weak, even if Hermione knew that no matter what she did, weak was not something he could be.

"You should relax," Hermione said. She set the box on the bed and pointed her wand at the fire to build it until the room became warmer than she might have liked it. While Muggles preferred the sterilizing effect of cold temperatures in their hospitals, magic of the kind with which Hermione would be working thrived and quickened in the warmth. "The procedure will be quick. If there is too much pain or something goes wrong, I'll hurt, but I can fix it. The poison and the antidote."

"You are remarkably calm," Voldemort replied.

"I am prepared."

"You're tired," he said.

"I slept last night." But she _was_ tired – the night before had been her first real sleep that she forced herself to have. It only made her muscles limp, just as she wanted them to be, as she needed to be.

"Learned what I've been trying to tell you, have you?" His shoulders settled into a more comfortable position, and his lips curved a little when she did not answer him with anything but a look. "What inspired this sudden change of mind?"

"One thing at a time," Hermione said. "First, I'll need to check how the decay has advanced so that I can compare the results following the test. I'll let myself feel later."

Voldemort opened the box and stared at the five vials. "You could choose to dismiss those feelings altogether. One thing at a time, one day at a time. There is no need for resignation or guilt when you feel nothing."

"Must be nice," Hermione said shortly. "You will need to remove your robes completely again." There it was, her stomach heavy in her abdomen as he shrugged them off and draped them to the side. He lay back and waited for her, staring at the ceiling. Finally, his entire body seemed to breathe in, out, without tension, although his shoulder twitched when her hand closed over his skin, cool in spite of the fire.

Magic crackled there as she sank into him. It was easier this time, always easier, and she let her self drift as she focused herself at his core and felt outward over the brightness and power of his second body. She heard him jerk as she insinuated herself into his mind, but looking inside and stretching herself out among his dual bodies was like moving through molasses and walking on tiny needles. He was struggling against her here – he gasped for breath as she held herself within him for both their sakes.

_Calm down, I'm not_…

_Get out._

_I need to be everywhere._

_Get _out of my_…_

_I'm sorry, Voldemort, but if the decay has spread to your mind, it will be more insidious and destructive there than the places in your second body._

_You're always th—_ His neck snapped back, his hands locking into a death grip on her arms, although she felt little of it. She had known that he would be sensitive about her presence in his mind – she had never been there, she had respected his desire to keep those thoughts to himself and give her the diary instead. She expected resistance, but nothing so violent. He Occluded against her every time she tried to shift in his head, and she began to pull back into her body in reaction to his rejection.

_Voldemort, I'm already a part of that. I'm bound to your mind, you know it._

There was silence, but his heart beat rapidly through her.

_I need you to calm down. It will be over soon, and I'll only stay in your mind for a minute._

_Why do I need to give you one more minute when you're always there?_ The thought was a breath, and Hermione thought that maybe he did not mean to give it to her.

_For you, Voldemort. I need to do this or I cannot continue._

As he let her float back inside of him, his body relaxed – they were one now and could move freely. She felt Voldemort's mind curl away from her, but he did not do any more than shudder as she followed those tendrils to their root. Finally, she covered every inch of him. The decay was more pronounced than she had expected, and she fought their mutual panic.

_It's Nagini, isn't it? You think it's Nagini and the way her venom catalyzes the immortality spells._ Hermione touched his decaying hands lightly before withdrawing back to his magical center where he felt safer.

_If I thought it was Nagini, I would have stopped milking her._

_You're milking her less often, though._

His body gave a great twitch before he went still again.

Hermione released his body and settled into her own. Voldemort jerked upright, hands clenching more tightly around her arms. She did not try to pull away even as her chest began to constrict. Voldemort had never been furious at her before. He had always lost his temper with Harry, but with her… with her, he was composed, poised, controlled. And she had made him lose his control by taking it from him. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It won't happen too often, only when I need a full evaluation of…"

Voldemort's eyes narrowed, but he did not say anything. He released her. She moved her arms, felt how hard he had been holding her – she might even bruise, but that could be dealt with.

"Are you steady?" he asked as she stood.

"Steadier than last time," she replied as her dizziness hit her hard and her muscles seized in reaction to the mental exercise Voldemort put her through. "I'll be fine, though. It'll be worse if one of these potions is painful – I'll feel it if you do, if that makes you feel better at all."

"When was the last time you thought of Harry?"

"What?" Hermione's neck made a snapping noise as she looked at Voldemort from where she arranged the potions vials.

"You think about Severus and the werewolf – I sense that clearly," Voldemort said evenly, his red eyes darker than usual. "But I think that Wormtail crosses your mind more than Harry. What would he think of that?"

Hermione paused with one of her hands holding a vial in midair. "We've parted ways by mutual consent. Neither of us can go down our chosen paths connected at the hip. Wormtail's here and Harry isn't. You know that."

"Neither the werewolf nor Severus are here, either."

"But their doors are open," Hermione murmured. The black, shimmering potion in the vial seemed to draw her attention away from Voldemort, although his gaze burned into her eyes.

The words hovered on the tip of his tongue so that both of them could hear – words unlike those that the younger Death Eaters threw at her – but he said nothing as his fingers brushed hers taking the vial from her hand.

"I need to strip you of the immortality spells before I dismantle anything else," Hermione said. Her voice was strained, but only a little. "They all seem to branch away from there, which will make them more easily removed after the barrier is out of the way. These potions will dissolve that barrier. Drink them as quickly as you can, otherwise your magic will begin to refuse them and fight in protective impulse. You've built them strong and sustaining. That is why you need time to adjust – the process will not be pleasant."

"What does the werewolf not tell you?" Voldemort asked. "That he fears what you've become or what I might make you?"

"He becomes something every month. He has nothing to fear from me."

"Perhaps from me, though – when he dies, Hermione, who do you think Harry will blame?" Voldemort said. "I know you do not care about the rest of the wizarding world. You've grown adept at creating your own barriers. But you still want his good opinion."

"I don't have the luxury of getting what I want," Hermione said. She knew what he was doing, and she thought of the sun as she restrained herself from falling into his net. "You know that perfectly well. Drink."

He took the vial and downed it in one swallow. She was ready with another one when his hand was empty again. His body began to convulse by the third potion, and his hands shook so that she had to hold his mouth open and pour the potion in. The last potion stiffened him like a board, his eyes wide and staring. Hermione reacted to every spasm he no longer showed physically, and she braced herself against it as she moved him under the covers of his bed.

"He'll… be fine," she managed to croak out to Nagini, who seemed to be glaring at her as she shifted onto the bed. She clutched one of the posts as she began to fall. It took all the force of will that she had and the promise of her own bed to get her back to her room. She collapsed short of her bed, but she pulled the pillow and a blanket down to the ground and shivered.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Title:** Ascent (Chapter 13 - 13)  
**Author Name:** Lunalelle   
**Owl the author:** here.   
**Rating** R  
**Spoilers:** PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP, QTTA, FB. Written between Order of Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.  
**Genre:** Drama, Romance  
**Era:** Multiple Eras  
**Main Character(s):** Hr, Vold  
**Ship(s):** None  
**Summary:** Sequel to uAbyss/u: Eight years later... Hermione's new profession leads her to take an anonymous client, and she finds herself face to face with the situation of her seventh-year, but now the tables have turned. She is no longer the powerless little girl-pet of Lord Voldemort. She is Hermione Granger of the Medicus Order, and she has a job to do. Hermione/Voldemort  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author's Notes:** I forgot to say it last chapter, which left me with a deep mark of shame: Thanks so much to Honeybean for looking over these last two chapters and betaing them. Starting again after so long is nerve-wracking, so it's nice to have you to help me set things straight.

**Chapter Thirteen**

Hermione woke to a cool, wet cloth being pressed to her fevered forehead. She shivered violently and clung to the blanket. She thought she saw Remus through her eyelids, but when she opened her eyes there was Wormtail, his pale, nervous face showing nervous concern. It was like time had not passed at all, and she was the girl with the collar and the pillow between them.

She jerked away reflexively, her head throbbing painfully in protest. Wormtail held out a hand to cradle her head as it settled back onto the pillow. She wanted to flinch again, but her body just wanted to rest and quiver with cold sweat.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't… I'm just here while… she asked me to help. The D-dark Lord told her to ask me," Wormtail tried to explain. His voice was muffled, like he was speaking through wool. The candlelight hurt her eyes, but she looked around the room toward where Wormtail was staring, beckoning desperately. Katherine stepped into her field of vision. Hermione felt her shoulders relax, felt herself melt into the floor as Katherine took the cloth from Wormtail and knelt beside him.

"Is he…?" Hermione croaked. Merlin, when had been the last time she was this sick?

"The Dark Lord is still adjusting, just like you," Katherine murmured, pulling Hermione's hair from her neck and pressing the cloth there. "You should be well enough in a day or two to tend to him. These sympathy sicknesses always fade eventually." She sat back on her heels. "Thank you, Wormtail. Your efforts are appreciated. You can return to your lord now."

She waited for Wormtail to shut the bathroom door behind him before she leaned over to stroke Hermione's hair gently. "This was the first time you've ever had a reaction to your client's pain, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded. "Eve, my first client, a little blind girl… I sometimes had moments of disorientation. But… never sick."

"You're inexperienced," Katherine said. "But you learn quickly, don't you, Hermione?" She dipped the cloth in a bowl of water and cooled Hermione's forehead again. "Unfortunately, you have to suffer through this the long way, since the reaction is empathetic in nature. You'll grow accustomed to it and be able to control yourself in your fever."

"My neck hurts," Hermione whispered.

"Your shivering must have kept your neck tense for too long," Katherine said. "Try and stay still."

Hermione forced herself to relax – she saw the fire in the hearth, the tidiness of her work station, the smart leather of her books, and her body went limp.

"Very good," Katherine said.

Black clouds narrowed her vision to the fireplace. She felt like she was half in a dream, like time had no meaning, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

"You've done well," Katherine said quietly. "You did the right thing for him. You _were _the right choice for the Dark Lord, Medicus."

But Hermione did not have any concept of ethics as cool water trickled down her forehead and into her hair, as she settled into something halfway into unconsciousness before finally falling into an unsatisfying sleep.

Voldemort sat in one of the armchairs, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He had a dull headache, but it did not seem like his own – Voldemort felt a twinge of sadistic pleasure when he thought that Hermione must be feeling at least half as bad as he did.

As Voldemort shivered in his chair, his mind kept going back to Hermione forcing him to take the last two vials of potion, her hand on the back of his, keeping him steady in the midst of an almost immediate magical unraveling. The way she helped him lay down and covered him in his comforter. The way she even addressed Nagini's concern. The way she stumbled from the room – and yet she left a part of herself behind, almost as though when she left his magical body, she literally shed a thin layer of herself so that her body overlapped with his away – and maybe that was what made her so sick. He wanted to sweat her out through his pores. If he could, he would vomit her into the fire. But the presence was fading with time, and all he could do was wait for this alien form shifting uneasily inside of him to leave.

There was a knock at the door, and Voldemort pulled the blanket tighter around himself. "I told you, Wormtail, I do not need or wish for your assistance."

If Wormtail never had to take care of him again, Voldemort might actually consider dying happily. While Voldemort accepted Wormtail's cowardly loyalty, the man needed no more fodder for believing his master to be weak – Wormtail was more than capable in the few things that he did well, and Voldemort would hate to kill him just because he tended to him one too many times and believed that he could only benefit from his lord's suffering. Then again, Wormtail had always possessed a healthy fear of Voldemort even in his most weakened state.

But that did not change the fact that Wormtail was useful and tolerable at best, and Voldemort no longer depended on him, having vowed never to need him as much as he had in that pathetic body before the mistake in the graveyard upon finally acquiring his old body again.

"I'm not Wormtail."

Now there was a voice that Voldemort had not heard in a considerable amount of time. "Come in."

The door opened, and Carmen floated in. His robes were ripped, showing a cut on his shoulder, but it was not deep, and one more scar on his body would not make a difference.

"You've never called a sick day before, my lord," Carmen said, looking up cautiously. "Especially not when you've ordered an attack. Not everyone notices, but how could I not?"

"I've said so many times, Carmen, you are too perceptive for your own good, and you don't know how to control your tongue," Voldemort said evenly. But he was not angry. "Your lack of tact in the face of great power will get you killed one day."

"Hopefully not by you," Carmen said. "I would hate to see our friendship end on such bad terms just because I have a mark on my arm."

"That mark on your arm was a choice," Voldemort replied. "With it comes certain changes."

"I avoided the Mark for so long because I enjoyed my freedom in the support I had for you – there was little choice when I was nearly murdered in my own home because of my quiet loyalties," Carmen said. "You said upon my acceptance of the Dark Mark that nothing would change, only a formality. You lied spectacularly to a man I was confident you never lied to."

"Naïveté from you?" Voldemort asked. "One would think that your age would bring wisdom."

"If what you want from me is another subservient arsehole without a brain, I can be that," Carmen said. "But I guarantee that my admiration for you, and perhaps even my loyalty, will wither."

Voldemort let the blanket fall to the sides as he stood, braving the cold. "That is a dangerous statement to make, Carmen. You know that."

Carmen lifted his carpet so that he was eye to eye with Voldemort – he would not lower himself for such a critical matter. "I am old, Lord Voldemort, and unlike you, I am not afraid to die, no matter how I love my life. War has been my life, and although my loyalties lean toward its continuation, it would be a mercy to see it end."

Voldemort took his wand from his robes and raised it as though it were a conductor's baton, just a hair's breadth from Carmen's cheek. Carmen had no wrinkles – his scarring was so extensive that his age was almost indeterminable – and his eyes were still strong.

"Is a solid voice, an unhesitant opinion, so threatening to you?" Carmen asked.

"It can be," Voldemort said. "Not yours specifically. But your Mark is not just a sign that you are against Dumbledore. It means that you are my servant. It is part of your contract."

"Is holding my tongue and avoiding you what you want?" Carmen asked. "I do not fool myself into believing that I am indispensable, but if you want to look at it strategically, perhaps you need at least one person in your ranks who can speak to you plainly. With subservience comes dishonesty, Lord Voldemort."

"Hermione is enough on that front," Voldemort replied.

Carmen's hard-planed face softened as he smiled. "So the lady's found her claws. I trust she was the one who had you confined to your room." Voldemort curled his lip, and Carmen yielded temporarily to Voldemort's sensitivity regarding his Medicus. Then Carmen's eyes narrowed. "You don't look well. I thought that the sick day was simply a reason for you to spend time with your Medicus for what ails you. But you look…"

"Hermione has hardly found her claws," Voldemort said, lowering his wand. He was not even sure if he had planned on using it anyway. "If I were to let her loose among my Dark Arts books again, she would fall prey to them almost instantly. Her mind, however, is all I need, not her emotional maturity."

"Because you, Voldemort, are the master of emotional maturity," Carmen said.

Voldemort raised an eyebrow. "I never said I was."

"Shouldn't she be here if you're sick?" Carmen asked. "For you, you look awful."

"You're pushing limits."

"Intentionally."

"Fine," Voldemort said. He settled into his chair again, and Carmen's carpet settled into the chair opposite. "She's also sick. That werewolf's Medicus, she's taking care of Hermione."

"Is it contagious?" Carmen asked, looking at himself pointedly.

Voldemort laughed, but it turned into a cough, straining from the shivers. "It's not an illness. One might call it a… weakness."

Carmen was quiet. "You would not have told that to any of your other Death Eaters."

Voldemort did not reply.

"Where did this… weakness come from?" Carmen asked. "It is Potter – has he found a way to come through the link between you?"

Voldemort snorted. "That boy? I haven't felt him in years since I made the connection subtler. No," Voldemort murmured. "Hermione did this to me."

Carmen's head jerked up in surprise. "I thought she couldn't. I thought she couldn't hurt you."

"Even a needle needs to pierce the flesh before the medicine can reach the blood," Voldemort said quietly. "An antidote can be painful. No one else could have done what she did. Not even me."

"A weakness…"

"I can do things she cannot do," Voldemort said. "She is not the weakness. My own ineptitude at healing myself of the more arcane transfigurations might be considered my weakness, although it is not applicable for the present."

"So what she did," Carmen said slowly, "was meant to heal you. This is a side effect?"

"You might say that."

"She is sick as well because _you_ are in pain," Carmen said, working through the riddle Voldemort gave him, "in spite of this weakness being beneficial." He was not going to press Voldemort for what his weakness was – the confidence itself was remarkable. Like their conversations used to be, perfectly neutral.

Voldemort nodded. He felt the thin husk of Hermione inside of him finally writhe and disperse so that it was just her mind hovering in his. He had not anticipated how much colder the loss of her made him, and he pulled his blanket unconsciously around him again. He felt his head begin to ache more sharply, and he knew Hermione was awake.

"Tell me about the attack on Scarborough," Voldemort said. "Give me something to warm me on these cold nights."

"The woman in the other room could probably do that if you persuaded her well enough," Carmen said.

"I was wondering when you would return to that insanity once I gave you permission to speak relatively freely," Voldemort said.

"The galleries are burning, the castles walls have fallen. The dementors were given free reign of the South Bay, the werewolves and Black Paws were given the North Bay after night fall. It all occurred under the Muggle radar, and the media only found it when all that was left was the aftermath. I think they may have found one dying werewolf, but if it was left behind, its wound must have been fatal."

"Any notable casualties on our side?" Voldemort asked.

"None," Carmen replied. "You've either taught them well or put the fear of the devil into your followers – I've never seen them so cooperative or well-trained. How ironic that it happens when your ranks swell into a population that should have dissolved into chaos."

"Word of mouth," Voldemort said. "The more I become a man they never see, the longer I stay alive in spite of the Ministry's and the Order's efforts, the more myths are made about my abilities. Even with Hermione here, which made the media and wizarding world wonder whether I was as strong as I initially seemed, my followers are determined to prove them wrong, as am I."

"If you want to continue to convince your followers, you may consider making an appearance," Carmen said. "Your absence _has_ been causing gossip – in such close quarters, things never stay quiet. You know this."

"Firsthand," Voldemort said. He sighed and pushed away the blanket again, trying to adjust himself to the cold. His skin seemed to shrink away from the air, but the fire made it a little more tolerable at last. The stiffness began to slither down his arms and legs. "I suppose that I can manage a dinner with the Death Eaters. The worst of the side effects passed this morning. Which is probably why Hermione is awake and waiting just outside the door wondering when she should interrupt."

"I'm not even going to ask," Carmen muttered as Hermione opened the door and raised an eyebrow at Voldemort.

"You look more awake than I'm feeling," Hermione said as she entered the chamber, closing the door behind her. "So I trust you're well enough for another evaluation." She braced her hand on the wall for a moment before making her way across the room to the fireplace. Carmen graciously lifted his carpet and took his place floating between their two chairs so that Hermione could sit down.

"Have you tried anything for the headache?" Voldemort asked.

"It's a side effect of your pain, so yes, I've tried, no, it didn't work. I could use a drink, though." Hermione looked to Carmen. He nodded and flew over to the liquor cupboard. "No, just water, please." She leaned her head back against the fabric of the armchair and closed her eyes. "You take magic for granted," she muttered, half to herself..

Carmen poured her water in a wine glass and stole a look at the both of them. They were probably the most comfortable together that he had ever seen, and the only thing Carmen could think was different than any other time was that they were both suffering each other's pain. He wondered about the benefits of routinely hitting Voldemort with a blunt object, then dismissed it as a suicide mission. "Romantic notions" would be his epitaph. Carmen floated back over and handed Hermione her water. She offered him a strained smile and pressed the thin glass against her forehead before taking a drink.

"My fever broke some time around when yours did," Hermione said. "Same with the stiffness. Are you feeling anything else differently – do you see things from an odd angle, do you feel lighter?"

"You were going to do an evaluation," Voldemort said, a tightness around his jaw.

"I am, but it would help if you gave me a brief description of how you're feeling," Hermione said. She looked pointedly at Voldemort. "It would make the evaluation easier."

"I'm still a little stiff, and I'm cold," Voldemort said, his eyes focused on the fire. "I have your headache, of course."

"Aren't we a pair?" Hermione muttered.

"Indeed," Carmen whispered almost under his breath. Voldemort heard him and sent a short Asphyxiation Curse his way. Carmen could not repress a smile.

"Here," Carmen said, back to his usual charming self. He extended his hand, palm up.Hermione looked tentatively at Voldemort before placing her hand in Carmen's. "You know the trick with most pain?" he said. "It's giving it a distraction."

His fingers pressed strongly against the palm of her hand in just the right places to make her wince.

"Your body is connected in ways you wouldn't imagine," Carmen muttered, massaging her hand just too hard.

"I'm a Medicus, remember," Hermione said with a small smile.

"You can feel things in your feet that originate in your stomach, if you're attuned to your body. That's why an orgasm curls your toes," Carmen said.

"Carmen, stop trying to seduce my Medicus," Voldemort said. "You don't have toes to curl."

Carmen's eyes were flickering and playful as they caught Hermione's. "Doesn't mean that my knees don't want to curl."

"Carmen…"

"Ow." She clenched her teeth as Carmen pressed harder and more forcefully around her hand. It wasn't until Carmen floated back into his position equally between them that Hermione realized that her headache was fading.

"Have you ever felt your heart in your hand?" Carmen asked. "Or the places around your joints where you are particularly sensitive, and the nerves sing all over your limb? All you do is redirect the pain, take control of it, and it disappears."

Voldemort ran a hand over his forehead. His hand did nothing to warm his skin, and that was disquieting. But Hermione's headache had already dissipated under his skin.

"Where did you learn that?" Voldemort asked.

Carmen grinned. "Sarah taught me. The Harem has its own aches and pains."

Hermione flexed her fingers. "I know of the theory, but I've never had to implement it before – my reactions were never so violent, and none of my clients needed alternative means of relief." She lifted her head to meet his eyes again. "Thank you. I'm afraid you'll have to leave during the evaluation, but thank you."

"My pleasure, Lady," Carmen said, bowing. "What should I tell the Death Eaters, my lord, about when you will meet them?"

Voldemort brought the blanket closer and stared into the fire. Hermione noticed that he kept avoiding her gaze. But when she looked closer, she discovered that he was not staring _into_ the fire, but _through_ the fire. Into the library. The thought made her shiver, and she almost thought she heard the whisper of the books beyond the hearth.

"They have been regrouping from Scarborough," Voldemort said. "I suppose a feast a week from yesterday would not go amiss. You will attend, of course, Hermione."

Her stomach twisted, but her anxiety by no means equaled that of when she first arrived. The Death Eaters and Voldemort's other followers, particularly the younger Death Eaters, had finally become more comfortable with her presence, even if some of them were not pleased. And with Bellatrix and Rodolphus's support alone, she imagined that eating with the Death Eaters again might be less strained than the last time. But she still had to tread carefully.

"Yes, I'll go," Hermione replied.

"That was not a request," Voldemort said.

"I know," Hermione said. "But you could not force me to go to a dinner I did not or could not attend due to applying myself to _your_ needs or mine."

Carmen bit his tongue but could not quite catch the snort of laughter that came through his nose.

"Carmen, I believe you have somewhere to be," Voldemort said, the hollows above his lower jaw tightening.

"Yes, my lord." He floated his way out of the room with one last wink in Hermione's direction.

"If I were you, Hermione," Voldemort said, his voice too controlled, "I would not challenge my authority in front of a Death Eater, even such a one as Carmen."

Hermione crossed her legs. "You don't have supremacy over _me_, Voldemort. If your Death Eaters believed that you did, they would treat me that way. And Carmen is insubordinate enough for the both of us."

"We have an understanding," Voldemort said, staring at the door. "But I lose my temper with him when he crosses a line and forgets that he is mine now."

"Then I recommend you rein in your temper around me," Hermione replied, her voice colder than she wanted it to be. His breath hissed sharply through his teeth.

"There may be a day when you require more of me than I am willing or able to give," Voldemort said, just as coldly. "I will not stand by and let you flaunt what control you have over me."

"Then why should I?" Hermione asked.

"Because your position is not so precarious," Voldemort said, pushing the blanket away and walking nearer to the fire. Hermione could feel the aches in his muscles, but he moved as smoothly and elegantly as he always had. "I have had to struggle to maintain my followers loyalty for me with you by my side. My influence was tenuous enough when they heard that I needed a Medicus, even more so when they found out that the Medicus was you. And the more you fight my control, the more my less loyal followers wonder whether they can do the same. You threaten my political position over my own followers, and this is perhaps only slightly less dangerous for you as a Medicus."

"I _won't_ be what I was to you," Hermione said. She was half-shouting, and she vaguely realized that she had stood up in anger. She closed her eyes for a second, felt the tension in her shoulders and spine trickle down. "I won't be that again because I'm _not_. I'm not your slave anymore, Voldemort. I can be careful around them, but I won't take orders. I'm your servant, but you're mine, too. And no matter how afraid you are of me, that isn't going to change. You're just going to have to open your mind to me and trust that I'll help you as well as I can, trust that I can hold my own against any Death Eater that attacks me or presumes that you are weak because of me. Whether I want to be here or not no longer has any bearing on things – we're too interconnected now. You feel that much at least. Your welfare is mine. Those followers of yours who are so narrow-minded that they believe that I am your weakness… they will know better. But I will not act a part that I'm not, not when it means going back to a past I left behind long ago, and you will not mold me into someone less than competent for you."

Voldemort felt the flames on his skin under his robes, but they barely pushed through the chill. He reached out and touched Hermione's hair, like he had when she was a pet. "If Severus could see you now," he murmured. "You think you're beyond what I have done to you?"

She ducked her head just enough for his hand to fall from her hair. "I'll never be _beyond_ it," Hermione said. "It never leaves my head. It colors every inch of my life. But I can work _through_ it, Voldemort. Being here is… tense." She touched her temple.

"If you've worked through it so well, why do you still flinch?" Voldemort asked. One finger on her forehead, just like when he had burned Harry through their own connection upon his rebirth. She took a half-step back.

"I'm still Hermione," Hermione said. "But part of Hermione is you."

She looked like she did not quite know what she meant, but Voldemort understood.

"Then you will show my Death Eaters that you are not a Medicus to be trifled with?" Voldemort said. At the thought, he was almost amused.

"If it comes to that," Hermione said. "I don't think it will."

"You have my completely nonpartisan permission to challenge whoever decides to rebel against me or attack you," Voldemort said. He thought that the time would come sooner than later – he knew his Death Eaters and his other followers far better than Hermione knew.

"Good to have your completely nonpartisan permission," Hermione said, with a half smile. "Not that I needed… oh. I suppose I did."

Voldemort nodded. "Your own precarious position. You're the Medicus of a political figure."

"And politics are too ingrained in my interaction with you," Hermione muttered. She walked away from the fireplace, which was warmer than was comfortable. She did not know how Voldemort could stand it – it was not usually stoked so high. "I forget when my world is almost exclusive to these four rooms."

She was headed to the bed, and Voldemort knew it was time for the evaluation of his condition now that the immortality spells had been removed. He should have been angry, tense. Even terrified might have been an acceptable emotion after what had happened last time, when she had invaded his mind and he felt too vulnerable, too open, too little his own. But all he could feel was cold.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**A/N:** Thanks to Honeybean for kicking my butt into writing a new chapter, then beta-ing it for me so well.

**Chapter 14**

_Relax_, Hermione whispered quietly as she slipped from her own body and into his. _We've done this before_.

Voldemort did not respond to her in any form, and Hermione did not know whether he resented what he believed to be a patronizing tone or whether he was actually listening to her. Either way, while the more sensitive cores were harder to reach, she did not have near the trouble that he had given her last time. Instead, his mind and body opened up to her willingly, if reluctantly, and she treated his acquiescence with the quickest of searches where he least wanted her, but she had to check at the places where she had noted the decay early in the evaluations, the hands, heart, head, ankles, and groin. She had to check each place again to be sure, this time more carefully, although she could feel him tighten up again in restlessness and frustration as she lingered where she was not wanted.

Almost too abruptly, Hermione pulled out of him and back into herself. She stumbled back and fell off the bed, shivering in reaction to both the severed connection and the abrupt exit. The concavity of Voldemort's abdomen swelled in deep, fast breaths, as though he had been running, and the pale flesh had taken on a grayish flush. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked at Hermione with a sort of disoriented confusion. With the sinuous flush moving over his body, it was as though the cold were pushed away in its wake. He wondered if the heat was from her, whether she left it behind.

Hermione's fingers curled in her hair, and she was tempted to pull it all out. _Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it_. It went through her head like a mantra as the import of the situation weighed down at her. No matter how she looked at it, this was going to be ten times harder than developing the potions to remove those immortality spells, and that had been almost impossible. Voldemort was a genius, but an impractically stupid one for trying out his immortality and transfiguration experiments on himself without knowing their effects on his magical foci. He had not even considered how strengthening himself would inevitably tear his incompatible physical form into pieces.

"You've really done a number on yourself," she muttered when her trembling finally settled into something manageable.

"And what, pray, have I done to myself this time?" Voldemort asked, feeling better than before and thus ready to be annoyed with her reticence. He did not need a story – he wanted a straightforward diagnosis.

"You were a sublime idiot," Hermione answered. She kept her voice at a monotone, but the underlying frustration – even fury – was nonetheless evident. "A spectacular fool." She forced herself standing, leaning against the wall while her feet and legs adjusted. "How could you possibly be this stupid, Voldemort? I was under the impression you had more intelligence than your mindless followers."

"Did something in my body cause you to channel Severus or have you simply decided to ignore my presence here altogether while you rant about my shortcomings?" Voldemort said. "Get to the point, Hermione."

"All of that transfiguration and you didn't once try to experiment on something else to see how it affected their magical signature?" Hermione asked. "In trying to make yourself stronger, you've nearly destroyed what makes you a magical being, and what do I find after removing the immortality spells shielding the full extent of your magical decay?" Hermione pounded her fist into the wall. "That removing the immortality spells effectively sped the decay up, and they held together your two forms – magical and physical – together all the time. Your transfiguration spells were the most destructive to your body, but the immortality spells kept your two forms knotted together. The knots aren't good, but they're certainly better than becoming untied altogether. The two forms aren't supposed to be so divisible – they should meld together, overlap as if they are one form. Yours are almost completely split except in your core areas, and coincidentally, that's also where the decay focuses."

"Hermione," Voldemort said slowly. "I work the other way – give me a reason, explain after."

"Fine," Hermione said. She ground her teeth for a moment as she searched for the right words, because she worked the former way – she talked her way through things until she reached a conclusion. "If I don't find a way to handle your decay, you would regress at an accelerated rate and could lose your magic altogether. That's what all of your bolstering and self-defenses have done – they've nearly destroyed you, and damn it, it took me weeks to figure out the immortality spells, and they were the most comprehensive. I'm not sure if I have time required to create some sort of antidote before the decay progresses too far. So aside from a number of Restorative Draughts, I can't think of how to slow the decay, and it's dangerous to use any kind of magic at all at the risk of stimulating the progression. There are general Muggle remedies, but I'm not sure how they'd react to your body, which isn't exactly human." Her head fell back and hit the wall with a dull thud that sounded more painful than it was. "I could hit you if the contract would let me."

Voldemort sat there for a moment, digesting the decidedly horrible diagnosis with his hands clenched in the comforter at his sides. He was not so much angry at Hermione, although irrational resentment began to build behind the electric pulse of fear that seemed to grow louder and louder in his ears. He did not want to be angry at himself, he wanted to be angry at Hermione – wanted to strike her down until she was the cringing, naked thing that she had been. He would have to find another outlet if he were to maintain some semblance of control, particularly before his followers if they were whispering of the possibility of his weakness.

Rumors, rumors, they were no longer rumors, and that galled him as much as anything – the flush fell away at an instant, leaving him as cold as he began. He was not accustomed to the chill at all, and he wondered at its meaning and whether it would ever leave.

"My magic… I might lose my magic," Voldemort said flatly. Although inflection matched that of statement, the assumption was interrogative.

"Perhaps," Hermione said. "All I know is that your two forms have almost completely severed themselves from each other aside from the stronger cores that already fester in decay. If I do something wrong, the knots there may unwind entirely so that your physical self separates from the magic. I don't know what would happen to you if your two forms split. All I know is that unless I managed to put the two together again in spite of the decay, you would lose a great portion if not the entirety of your magic. Particularly the myriad of transfigurations. I don't want to imagine what it would be like for you to be stripped of all of your magic if your side effects for the removal of the immortality spells were so extreme. Or, for that matter, what it would do to me."

"If you had not removed the immortality spells…" Voldemort began.

"I might not have seen how terrible the decay and connections were. The removal may have accelerated the decay, but you would have eventually reached it. And the connections were a few days ago as they are now. I did nothing to those. You did that on your own." She made herself walk forward to assess and adjust herself. It was amazing how this time differed from the first – she had been half paralyzed when they experienced their initial evaluation that coupled their contract. "The truth is, Lord Voldemort, that you did _all_ of this on your own, and have no one to blame but yourself, so don't you dare think to give me the fault. I just…" She brought her fingers to the sides of her head. "I just need to think."

Voldemort was ready to strangle her now. "So what exactly do you recommend I do, Hermione?" he asked irritably. "I don't want to lose my magic, and I'd rather not make matters worse by doing something that will speed up the process of decay. Stop scrambling around like a two-headed mouse, stop seeing the illness, and think of some of the repressants that might be administered."

"Stop using magic," Hermione snapped. "That's the best way to slow the decay, because with every spell cast or potion taken, your magical body pulls away from your physical body even more. It'll buy me time anyway."

"Is that all?" Voldemort asked. "Stop doing magic to prevent the loss of my magic." Voldemort managed to keep his voice from _dripping_ sarcasm, but it seeped through anyway, and Hermione glared at him.

"I'm not mad at you," Hermione said. "I'm frustrated with magic, and as remarkable as it may seem, I don't want you to die as of now, although if you keep being self-destructive and accusing, I might consider letting you be because your unintentional suicide may be just as beneficial for you as trying vainly to help. You're too intelligent for your own good, you know. If you hadn't made up intricate spells and enchantments to achieve what other wizards never could do, you wouldn't be in this predicament, and I wouldn't be struggling to figure out what the hell you've done."

Voldemort pushed himself standing and slipped his arms back into the sleeves of his robes, tying the too thin fabric around the coldness of his body. It looked and felt like marble to him, and although he could not shiver like Hermione, he had trouble walking against the stiffness toward one of the two chairs in front of the fireplace where he had left the warm blanket. The fire felt too good to leave, so he settled back into the chair in which Hermione found him in the first place, taking advantage of both sources of warmth, as well as they could warm him at all, since the cold came from within.

"When was the last time that decay and form split to this degree?" Voldemort asked.

Hermione paused in her pacing and thought. "Never," she admitted.

"Then how was I supposed to anticipate it?" Voldemort asked. "I've no Inner Eye, and I would not dare to experiment with strengthening and immortality spells on other creatures - I would not want to create my own enemy. I've already done that once. I don't need to make an army."

"I told you I wasn't mad at _you_," Hermione said, sinking into the chair with her posture as bad as she could make it. Her chin sank down to her chest and her eyes closed.

"Well, now that you've calmed down, tell me several of our options, aside from eschewing magic altogether – I cannot maintain a magicless existence in my position, although I will attempt to keep my magic to a minimum," Voldemort said, conceding the point and endeavoring to make himself _sound_ agreeable, even if they both knew that he was not.

"As I said, maybe some Muggle remedies that replenish energy, although nothing they have compares to a simple Restorative Draught or Strengthening Serum, the latter of which I understand you have in abundance. We might try both of them and assess their effects on you as closely as possible." Hermione sighed. "Those are the simplest solutions. I'll have to study your transfigurations in more depth, and as repugnant as I consider experimentation on living creatures, I may want some basic rodents to work with in terms of the steps you took and ways to bind the side effects. It may be belated, but I may be able to stop the decay in its tracks. Maybe. But to be honest…" She looked into the fire, her hands clenching the arms of the chair. "I don't think I can," she finished quietly.

Voldemort's hands clenched the arms of his own chair to mirror hers, and although he was sorely tempted to vent his anger on her, he knew better, for more than just political reasons. From the earnestness of her tone and inflection, she was as concerned for his welfare as he, and she had a sense of despair that she could not help. It was times like this when there was just this room and the two of them, none of the war raging beyond their quarters. It was not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but Voldemort felt almost satisfied that she could keep part of herself here and here alone when so much of her past revolved around worldwide events. It had taken time, yes, but even if she kept some of her real opinions to herself, she maintained an equitable politick standard where his health, his life, was concerned.

"If you don't mind, Lord Voldemort, I think I'd like to get out of this fortress again. This time to… to visit Severus. He'll help me procure the best animals for experimentation, and he'll be able to deal with my idealistic nonsense with just enough sarcasm to express his disgust – but he'll find what I need." She adjusted her position in the chair until she was sitting properly in the seat. She stared into the fire with a countenance no longer clenched and furious, but more introspective. It was that cataloguing gaze of the insatiable appetite of curiosity – this was Hermione harkening back to the day when she still wore shackles and translated the entirety of Severus's journal.

"I would prefer if you would stave off the visit until after the feast when I assure everyone that I'm just as strong as I used to be." Voldemort gave a short bark of dry laughter that did not become him at all. Hermione looked at him sidelong in half-concern – in comparison with his impending total self-destruction, it was a small thing, so she could not gather up enough worry about a strange tone in his voice.

Hermione nodded then. "That'll be… acceptable, I guess. I want to do it sooner rather than later, but this will give me the time to prepare a list and decide the best way to, well, approach Severus on neutral ground without him biting my head off like…" _Like he did last time_ was what she was going to say, but she thought she would keep that to herself.

"If we're going to have random animals running through the fortress…" Voldemort began dryly.

"It'll be my sanity they wonder about," Hermione said. "I've nothing else here, and I'd like to start writing a request to Severus and… get started on analyzing the transfiguration spells this time as well as I can without subjects."

"I'd like to be left alone," Voldemort interrupted.

"Yes, I suppose you do," Hermione said. She headed back to the door that led to his bathroom, then her quarters. She paused at the handle. "I still don't like you, but I'd like to say that I hate this is happening to you."

Voldemort did not respond to the pitiful attempt at diplomacy and condolences, as sincere as they might be, and Hermione shut the door behind her without another word.

v88888v

By this point, it took house elves to maintain the cleanliness of the fortress and to manage the hunger of its occupants. Hermione was aware of their presence now, although she had forbid the first one she saw in her quarters to ever come back again. Maybe a little too harshly, but she had been taken aback by both the presence of house elves in the fortress – how naïve she had been to think the fortress got by with magic alone – and the fact that they were in a room that she preferred to keep cloistered from all prying eyes. She would not think a house elf could spy, although there were always exceptions like Dobby, but she preferred to never take chances when it came to such sensitive material as Voldemort's notes and her own. Cleaning her room on her own gave her the chance to think while doing something productive without her hands, like not pulling out her hair or engaging in other maddening, picking, pernicious activities.

A few hours before the feast found her cleaning her room like a cleansing dervish. Before, books had been strewn about her desk and the floor around it, her bed had been constantly unmade, and dust piled on every corner and wooden piece of furniture that she did not use regularly. She spent the time replacing the books back into the bookshelves in some semblance of order, dusting the furniture with a few household charms, and tucking sheets under the mattress. She thought that she might have been nervous about the feast a few weeks ago, but she could not find it in herself to do much more than continue her train of thought on the part of Voldemort's predicament.

She discovered that the best thing she could do was forego her usual habit of writing on scrolls of parchment for random notes and instead charmed her usual journal into a smaller size to keep in her shoulder bag. It looked almost like her satchel from school, but it was slightly more expensive and more practical for travel – not that backbreaker in which she kept so many texts back at Hogwarts. As she reached the point of cleaner rooms and not much to do but wait, she slipped her journal into the bag and turned to her wardrobe. Were she an ordinary Medicus, she would think nothing of wearing more formal robes for feasts and parties. It was what was expected of her. But it seemed almost pretentious and desperate for her to do so for a Death Eater feast. She could dress for Voldemort, but it felt strange to dress for them, no matter how grudgingly some of them were beginning to tolerate her presence as a permanent fixture around Voldemort. She was there, and that she was there at all was well-known and felt. There was sometimes the soft sound of quiet feet by her door that could not be dismissed as Draco's gang, Wormtail, and certainly not Carmen, who had no footsteps at all. She was a curiosity, a point of resentment and contention, but also the subject of wonder and intrigue. She wondered if it had hit the Death Eater gossip column that she and Voldemort had wild, torrid sex – if it could occur to the _Quibbler_, surely it could occur to Voldemort's followers. And with a place like the Harem and groups like the Cat's Paws, it must be impossible for his followers to never have thought of the possibility, as ridiculous as it may be. Everyone loves a sexual scandal, especially when too many people were confined to one place.

Hermione turned toward the sound of those quiet footsteps at the door, but this time, the person stopped and knocked. Hermione knew instinctively that Wormtail waited for her on the other side, and her stomach sank. She had to admit that being with him was not _as_ bad as it used to be, especially after he had helped Katherine take care of her – Wormtail was adept at taking care of people, Hermione thought dryly – but she still could not help but cringe when he was around. She noticed that most people cringed when he was around, so it was more than likely that everything about him was unlikable.

Wormtail opened the door himself when Hermione did not answer it. She was standing in front of her wardrobe, still trying to decide whether to go in clean work robes or in one of her more formal sets. When he saw that she was decent, he opened the door more and stepped through. He did not approach her, just stood there with his hands half-wringing and his head bowed.

"I've been told to, erm, e-escort you to the feast," Wormtail said.

"I need to change," Hermione said evenly. "Wait outside for me. I'll be out in a few minutes." It made Hermione's stomach heave as Wormtail's face turned a light shade of red, but he complied, closing the door behind him.

With Wormtail outside of the door, she felt compelled by urgency to just change into the formal robes. They were not anything that the Malfoy family would call expensive, but the Medicus Order was not supposed to show an excess of wealth. Their social position meant little when their honor in the wizarding world was so low to begin with. Still, she might as well try to make a sensibly good impression to contrast with the last time she had feasted with the Death Eaters. She did not want to be loved, she decided, but undisturbed would be nice. Sighing, she slung her bag over her shoulder with a quill and Unspillable Ink. She would prefer to use a pen – the more years she used quills and parchment, the more she wished pens and paper would catch on the wizarding world, especially since they traveled better – but she knew better than to retain Muggle habits when it was such a volatile subject.

Hermione exited the room without properly looking at Wormtail as he led her to the dining hall reserved for Death Eaters. Voldemort was waiting for her, but at least she was not late this time, and she was in her previous spot to the right of Voldemort and to the left of Carmen, who applied himself to serving Hermione a touch of salad and buttering her roll. In spite of his scarring, Hermione could almost believe he was one of the more charming men she had ever met. Everything he did seemed smooth, even his cocked smile and perpetual squint. He was easily the most tolerable of the Death Eaters – mostly because he was a Death Eater only because of his Dark Mark, which Hermione had found quite an interesting development, to say the least.

"Thank you," Hermione murmured, and she pulled out her journal to look over her previous notes to find some sort of easier connection, something she had been trying to do for days in almost manic desperation. She wished that she did not have to be here for the feast. It was productive for Voldemort's image, but not for his cure. She could hardly think when the older Death Eaters save the Lestrange couple and Macnair glared at her and the younger Death Eaters just _waited_. She had an idea that she had been the topic of heated discussion lately. The atmosphere was tightly strung as the main course magically appeared on their plates, and Hermione sensed something was going to come to fruition that evening, if just for the cathartic effect of unleashing repressed frustration against Voldemort's situation. Somehow, Hermione _knew_ that whatever needed to happen would happen before they reached the dessert.

Hermione looked up from her journal nervously at her barely touched plate and Voldemort's seeming coolness. His plate was exclusively rare meat, and Hermione raised an eyebrow. She would have to look at diet as well. It had not really occurred to her to notice Voldemort's eating habits, as well as she knew him, and his diet could not be helping his condition. Even if it was not causing the decay, it was certainly hurting his chances of improvement. She wrote the abbreviated thought down in the margin of her latest entry, and when she looked up, she noticed that the entire hall was still. Voldemort looked almost like a statue, although his eyes burned like a fever – Hermione realized that his glamours he cast upon himself to indicate better health did not fool her. She could see beyond his attempts to mask his weakness, and Hermione wondered why she had not seen the change in him before. There had been a time when he exuded power, and now, while he still possessed the greatest power that any wizard could hope to carry, it was clearly a heavier load than he was physically capable of bearing now. His power now came from him in discordant waves. She could see sickness all over him. She only needed a comparison – it had been so long since she had looked straight at him, truly _at_ him.

She was momentarily mesmerized by the sight that her attention wavered from the demanding silence centered behind her.

But her hand was on her wand as she felt the length of another against her cheek.

"I think we have had enough of this farce," Lucius said softly enough that his voice practically purred with poison, but somehow the words filled the room, and none of the Death Eaters missed a bit of it. "If our lord is so weak that he needs this Mudblood Medicus we once saw as clear as crystal as our lord's slave… why, then he should not be our lord. He _cannot_ be."

The audacity of Lucius's statement made Hermione tense more than the threat of his wand. She knew more than anyone how precarious his position was now – she, after all, knew that although Voldemort was to limit his magic, he certainly was not going to let subordination go unpunished, especially when subordination lowered itself to questioning his totalitarian authority. She looked at Voldemort, but he did nothing at all, simply watched Lucius with an almost amused look in his eyes – just waiting for his following to have his say before said follower realized exactly what he had done.

"I have had this girl in my rooms, when she was just a slave of a thing. She's sunk so low as to be in Wormtail's bed," Lucius continued, his lip curling in disgust, as though Hermione were some sort of rotting vermin. "And now she sits at our lord's right hand because she is his Medicus. There is some so seriously wrong with him that he needs a Medicus to cure him and protect him – because he cannot cure it himself. Would you let your lord be taken care of by a Mudblood bitch only worthy to lick his boots, and have our lord accept her, even protect her as if she were as important to him as Bellatrix? I know that this has gone far enough. And I am not the only one, am I, my friends?"

Carmen's brows rose as many of the senior Death Eaters, excluding himself, stood, face set, although he noted a murmur of nervousness. They were certainly gambling with their lives, and if not that, their statuses with the Dark Lord. Unlike Lucius, who could maintain his own sort of charismatic, aristocratic, dramatic front and who seemed to firmly believe the words he was saying, the other Death Eaters were still unsure. And perhaps it was telling that the younger generations of Death Eaters, the ones that had not been with him since the beginning, were still seated.

There was a clatter of silverware, that broke through the resulting silence. Eyes turned to Wormtail, who stared resolutely at his plate, hands shaking. He, too, was sitting with the younger Death Eaters, one of the few of the elders clearly siding with the Dark Lord.

"Have you got something to say?" Lucius asked, his tone deceptively open and inviting, which should have been the first clue that he did not want to be interrupted.

"Just that you're wr-wr-wrong," Wormtail muttered. "About b-both of th-th-them. M-maybe I am the l-l-lowest of all of you, and Lucius may not be, but the D-dark Lord gave her to us to break her… in our rooms. But we d-didn't." He never lifted his eyes from his plate. "Did we? I never tried, but you failed. O-only Voldemort could break her. But she's not broken now, and she's always been smart. Smarter than any of you. Maybe not as p-powerful as our lord, but I g-guess she can understand him. That's why sh-she's his Medicus."

"Why, thank you, Wormtail, we'll be sure to keep the words of a consummate spy under consideration," Lucius said.

"Your son's not standing," Hermione interrupted. She was looking at Draco, but she turned around in her chair to face Lucius now, to see his reaction.

"He is a fool," Lucius replied. "He's still young."

"You are the fool, Lucius," Voldemort said, his voice even. Hermione may be able to sense that the power coming from him was less controlled than it used to be, but she would bet a thousand Galleons that Lucius could not. He could only sense that he might have miscalculated. He pushed his giant chair back and set his wand on the table, spreading his arms to the sides, showing that he was unarmed. Hermione, too, raised her brows upon the display of vulnerability. She wondered what capability he had beyond his wand. Wandless magic had not been possible since the creation of the mainstream wand and its proliferation to the world's four corners. The skill had diminished almost completely, although unspoken magic had maintained a certain amount of presence in the wizarding world for those focused enough to manage it. Hermione could think of only five texts available in the world teaching wandless magic, and four out of five of them were old foreign languages, the other in Old English. Voldemort could not possibly have… it was not in his notes…

Was Voldemort actually _bluffing?_ Power he had in spades, but the talent she had never seen demonstrated. Hermione's muscles were drawn tight in the strange political challenge orchestrated by such a poor competitor as Lucius. Honestly, even if Voldemort were not up to par, Lucius was certainly no substitute or replacement. Hermione could not name one person for that task, but Lucius never had a place on the list. Hermione wanted to laugh in his face, but knew better.

The wand against her cheek shook a little. It did not move from her, though, which told Hermione that maybe Lucius's bravado was fading, so he was depending on his hatred of Hermione and her place with the Dark Lord to bolster his case and emotional foundation.

"Have I let my old faithful Death Eaters become complacent?" Voldemort asked, eyes assessing each of the standing Death Eaters in turn. "Have I assigned you too important a responsibility? Have I given you too much trust, too much authority, that you question mine?"

"You're sick," Lucius replied. The tip of his wand dug into her cheek. "You are unfit."

"Am I?" Voldemort hissed, walking slowly toward him, his movements betraying none of the anxiety and fear that Lucius's was. "Does a sickness mean that I cannot wave my wand and destroy nations? Does it mean that I cannot strangle you with my bare hands if I chose to sully my flesh with your disloyalty?"

"Yet you need this bitch?" Lucius asked. "You _need_ her. You have the power of the world, but you cannot survive without this… this _Mudblood_? If you are really so powerful, _my lord_, cast her away. Or better yet, kill her and challenge the Medicus Order, waste away their nation."

"You used to have a better understanding of politics," Voldemort said. "I will not challenge the Medicus Order. And if you will, you will find yourself and your cause buried forever. Could it be that you have merely grown impatient? You could wait thirteen years in my absence but cannot wait thirteen years with me."

Hermione yelped as Lucius grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her from her chair onto her knees. The scream was more in surprise than pain – he had grabbed near the roots, and all she felt was pressure, no pain at all.

"When we returned, we returned to _you_, not a wasting old man who needs a filthy Medicus," Lucius said. "Let's see what happens to you when your Medicus dies… slowly and painfully before your eyes."

"Are you jealous of her so much?" Voldemort murmured. It was not so much a question but an expectoration of disgust.

Lucius whipped his wand over his head, preparing to make good on his promise. The dining hall resounded with shouts, shattered porcelain, clattering utensils, the dull thud of flesh on flesh in the urgency of the situation. Hermione saw everything as though it were in slow motion, every detail, as Voldemort reached for his wand, Carmen flew in circles, his mind and therefore his direction completely flummoxed, and Death Eaters either coming to her aid or coming to help Lucius.

Then there was a lightning-fast arc of her own wand through the air and Lucius flew across the room, hitting the wall solidly on his back, collapsing on the ground like a richly-dressed doll. His body, however, kept twitching and writhing, his screams muffled by his sleeves and cloak. It was only when the chaos cleared and Hermione lowered her wand, her lips a thin, straight line, that they realized that he had been under the Cruciatus curse. Hermione had not opened her mouth to cast it, nor would she have chosen that spell had she done so, but she felt no remorse in the use.

"A Medicus may protect herself," Hermione said as though she were reciting a textbook, "when she feels that she, her position, or her client is in immediate danger. The defense must equal the attack." She looked to the wary Death Eaters still around the table. "I believe I've made a preemptive example of Mr. Malfoy. Now," she directed at Voldemort, "if you don't mind, I feel decidedly unwelcome and distracted by the many possibilities your predicament offers me, and I would like to bring my dinner to my quarters."

"You may leave," Voldemort said, his fingers caressing the handle of his wand as he stared intensely at his Death Eaters.

When she was close enough, she leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Be careful not to overexert your magic."

"I know what I'm doing, Hermione," Voldemort replied.

Hermione bowed her head in acquiescence and left the room for Voldemort to his Death Eaters' punishment.

**A/N: **Apologies for the wait, but this semester gave me little time to do much besides NaNoWriMo, which gives me the original story outlet that I need. I hope to get at least one more chapter out before next semester starts. Hope you enjoyed it!


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Author's Note:** Thanks a million to Honeybean for the beta. Couldn't do this without her. To my readers: I apologize for being gone for about five months, but I'm really not sorry. My poor muse had fled, and Ascent just didn't call to me like it used to. It's best to let these things work out on their own. Rest assured that I will never completely abandon Ascent.

**Chapter 15**

Hermione waited patiently on the doorstep as Severus's house elf went to fetch him from his cellar laboratory. The light from the entrance hall spilled onto the stone flags of the foyer like thin fire. Hermione preferred to stay in the frigid weather outside rather than wait against the unexpected, plush surroundings that Snape provided for himself outside of Hogwarts. There was something both invigorating and anonymous about the dry frost that had settled against the streets and buildings, and Hermione felt the need for both.

When Severus came to open the door for her, Hermione could not help but choke on her perfunctory words of greeting. He looked terrible, even for Snape. His hair looked several months overdue for a trim and hung limp over his shoulders. He had not shaved in what looked like weeks, although simple spells would have removed the growth in a second. Underneath his eyes, purple bags bruised and framed his black eyes. While his hygiene could not be said to be the best Hogwarts ever saw, she had come to expect a certain amount of control and dignity on Severus's part. He had always been presentable and sharp, held together by the force of his buttons alone. But now the oil in his skin and hair seemed to have doubled and his clothes looked rumpled and well-worn. Hermione was surprised that the man's house elf hadn't forced him into a bath and a night cap. She supposed that she would have to do it – Snape could not force her to do otherwise.

Days had passed since she had cursed Lucius, and the toll of the Unforgivable upon her good intentions left her without much appetite. Reluctantly she did eat and continued to doggedly compile her next move to help Voldemort. She had known that the Unforgivables were unforgivable partly for the reason that they ravaged a part of the caster– perhaps that part they called the soul – but the attribution of these curses to the spiritual destruction seemed arbitrary when there were other curses that were much worse than the three Unforgivables.

Voldemort had punished Lucius within an inch of his life in front of all the other Death Eaters so that any of them who had agreed with Lucius but had not spoken up would think again. Lucius had not been able to move for two days, and he walked with a severe limp the rest of the week. Hermione assumed that Voldemort would not permit Narcissa or any of his compatriots to heal him at all. Few of the older Death Eaters looked her in the face. She knew which ones supported her place as their lord's Medicus from the eye contact accompanied by a sort of subdued, smug smile.

In the meantime, Hermione sensed Voldemort's quieter attention upon her as she continued her work monitoring his surface decay without delving in completely in deference to his discomfort. He did not ask why she felt differently to him, and she did not offer an answer because she did not properly understand herself. Sometimes, as a Medicus, she had to do violent things in order to heal, but Cruciatus went well beyond that responsibility. The fact that it had been conjured wordlessly, reactively, filled Hermione's chest with a chill disquiet. All of that worry fled as Hermione slid past Severus into his home before he even had time to welcome her in or throw her out. It bespoke of his weariness that he had no precautions to stop her and no strength to push her away.

She corralled the house elf into helping her, and since that was what the elf wanted in the first place, Hermione had no real trouble beyond a few incomprehensible grumbles from Snape as Hermione lowered him into the bathtub. He never directly commanded the house elf to stop, so he must have been more tired than he appeared.

She had no reservations about the man's nudity as she might have eight years ago. She helped clean the oil and grime from his skin and asked the elf to get him some clean clothes. Once Snape was dressed, Hermione applied a cutting charm to his hair and a shaving charm to his beard. She then led him to the dining room where the elf had laid a hot stew and a hearty wine out for the both of them. They made it through the first bottle of wine before Snape felt dignified enough to ask her why she had come at all. His glance seemed careful, due to the less than agreeable way they had parted last time. Now that he had rested, he could be guarded again, the master of his own manor. He could be Snape.

"And why did you feel the need to visit me now, of all times, Miss Granger?" Snape asked, leaning back in his chair.

"I don't know what _these times_ are, Severus," Hermione replied. "I thought now was the right time to come back to you. As you told me."

Snape raised a characteristic eyebrow. "You're telling me that you have no idea what has been happening in the rest of the world?"

"I've been busy," Hermione replied. "If you've been busy fighting Voldemort, it makes sense that my attention has been on him. The Death Eater fortress doesn't have a _Daily Prophet_ subscription."

"Then you know I cannot tell you what has been happening," Snape said.

"I never asked."

"You never answered _my_ question," Snape interrupted. "_Why_ are you here?"

"I need your help in procuring some items, I'd appreciate some neutral suggestions on a few things, and… I wanted to leave the fortress for a little while, for reconciliation with you, at least." Hermione held up a hand to stop his protests before they started. "I don't want you to give me answers to any of my questions that might help Voldemort, although I suppose anything you do might help him. Still, my authority as a Medicus can make you tell me anyway. All I need to ask are questions along the lines of academia and theories that I might have missed. Nothing specific to the Dark Lord."

His eyes were still tired, but he stared at her with a measure of contemplation and clarity. "You've become more amenable to your position."

Her face tightened, but she nodded.

"What's wrong?" Severus asked. He would never have asked a student, but she was no longer his student, and he could afford to show a little compassionate interest.

"I performed an Unforgivable," Hermione answered, not quite looking at Severus. "Not on purpose, it was a silent spell, more reaction than anything. But it's not often that Cruciatus comes out of thin air, and… I did it to protect him. Me mostly, but also him."

"If you're feeling guilt, that means you're merely human," Severus said. "If you're looking for reassurance, you won't receive it from me."

"I know, I'm the bad guy now," Hermione said. "Just saying that feels so strange."

"You aren't the 'bad guy,' as you put it," Snape replied. "But the fact remains that you work for him, and you seem to have finally acknowledged the fact – for that, I won't insult or harangue you. I will not, however, encourage your use of Unforgivables and other Dark magic that irreparably harms your soul, however unintentional. That the Cruciatus curse came from your wand without a direct casting implies that the darkness inside of you that developed so long ago is still as strong as it was. You may have caged it with your Medicus training, but I'm sure that aiding Voldemort has created a sort of trigger to bring it out again."

"If you recall, that was exactly what I was afraid of happening when I last saw you," Hermione said dryly. "I was afraid that if I became too accustomed to Voldemort and helping him without my usual scruples…"

"Yes, yes, I know, you were right all along. You're maddeningly good at that sometimes."

Hermione managed a grin at that.

"You aren't, however, maintaining the illusion that you are impartial to Voldemort's fate," Snape continued. "That will be important in the days to come. And something is coming." He raised his glass to his nose, inhaling lightly before finishing the wine. "Your unusual allegiance to him will be important. You won't have to test your Medicus vows when it will be the hardest."

Hermione did not say it aloud – that would have given Snape information about Voldemort that could help the Order in defeating him – but she thought to herself, _Of course they all had to be fighting an epic war when all Voldemort needs is peace and time._ She supposed she could say that about Harry as well, although to her knowledge, Harry was only getting stronger because he was working with his natural magic. He would never try and enhance himself beyond all recognition like Voldemort, nor would he be able to. Hermione had a whiff of nostalgia for the old days – that they seemed simple to her now indicated how complicated life had become.

"Why are you warning me?" Hermione asked. "Isn't that…?"

"You cannot share vital information from our side with his," Snape said. "I have no such scruples or vows to maintain, and the warning is more for you than the Dark Lord. He may not keep you up to date on current events, which I believe to be a gross error on his part, but your own safety and wellbeing is connected to his. And I will admit that I, as well as other members of the Order, continue to find your wellbeing important."

"Why, Severus," Hermione said, "I never knew you cared." It was supposed to be a teasing remark, but the joke fell thin. She did not really have the energy for it.

"On the other hand, the information I handed you isn't vital," Snape said. "You would have discovered it in time – it's hardly information. There's bound to be several climaxes to this never-ending war." Snape closed his eyes, but the lines between his eyebrows did not disappear.

"We can discuss this tomorrow," Hermione said, standing up and beckoning to the house elf. "You should get to bed. You'll be more coherent if you sleep."

"There's no time," Snape murmured.

"The Order will get along without you for one day, and you'll be no use to them like this. I'll have Mindy keep everyone at bay while you rest," Hermione said.

He said nothing to her on the way to his room, but Hermione did not sense any antagonism or annoyance at her concern.

"Do you mind if I sleep here tonight?" Hermione asked.

Snape waved his hand, as though brushing the request aside. Of course she would be allowed to stay. She touched his covered hand in gratitude, then left him to his rest. She settled into her usual guest room, sighing as she sank into the window seat and looked out onto the street where snow was starting to fall again.

She woke up to the wind whistling through the glass and the smell of a proper breakfast floating up through the doorways. She stretched, enjoying the moment alone. She rarely had a moment alone in the fortress – Voldemort was always present heavily in her head. She still felt the connection here, but it did not impose. She could not remember if she had ever smelled breakfast at the fortress – she was so focused, and her room had its own smell. It felt like the first time she had relaxed properly. She was in no rush to leave the warmth of the comforter.

Finally, the house elf came in to get her out of bed, looking decidedly less frazzled than the evening before. Clearly, her master had received the requisite amount of food and rest so that she was able to allow herself the same luxuries. Hermione grumbled good-naturedly and told Mindy that she would be down in a minute or two.

"Now that I'm not falling asleep in my cups, as it were," Snape said somewhere in the middle of breakfast, "what exactly did you come here for besides diplomacy?"

"I would go to Minerva about Transfiguration theory," Hermione replied, "but I don't think she'd welcome any questions that might help Voldemort. I don't blame her really. I knew I could depend on you to respect the nonpartisan aspects of my work. Also, although it does not require going underground or anything like that, I could use your company in procuring whatever animals I need."

Snape stared at her for a moment. "Animals."

Hermione gave a little half smile. "Fifteen mice, fifteen snakes, and fifteen lizards. I need them for experimental purposes."

"Miss Hermione Granger of S.P.E.W. is looking for lab rats," Snape said, his fork paused on its way to his mouth. He almost smirked.

"I wouldn't do it if I thought I had an alternative. You know that perfectly well," Hermione retorted.

"And the lizards and snakes are for…"

"I need something reptilian," Hermione explained. "Voldemort has enough of the serpentine inside that to presume him to be human would only hinder the experimentation."

"He's become worse, hasn't he?" Snape asked.

"I can't tell you that," Hermione said quietly. "I shouldn't have to say it."

"I wasn't trying to gather information," Snape said. "We know he's unwell."

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to you," Snape continued. "So you've decided to fully take on your responsibilities as his Medicus, but if he's too far gone, your responsibilities may not last to next summer."

"Maybe you're underestimating him. Maybe…" she said with a touch of coldness, "you underestimate me."

Hermione tried to feel some sort of remorse for talking to Snape like that when Severus was just about the only person she really had left outside the fortress. She did not want to alienate him, but the way that he was probing… She did not appreciate Severus's spy work here and now.

"Hermione, far be it from me to criticize my reflection, but you're being paranoid," Severus said, passing the buttered toast.

"Wouldn't you be?" Hermione asked.

It seemed as though Snape were actually considering the question. Hermione had meant for it to be rhetorical. Staving him off before he could answer, she interrupted, "What do you think is the best way to contain fifteen inevitably breeding mice? I want them to breed, which will probably have me knee-deep in mice after two weeks or so, but I'll deal with that when I get to it."

Snape forewent the first rhetorical question and answered her second. "Use the tank that was given to you for Voldemort's Animagus."

Hermione blinked.

"You do still possess it, yes?" Snape asked.

"Yes, but… I hadn't even thought…"

"A common malady," Snape muttered into his goblet.

"Well, there's one solution, surprisingly easy," Hermione said. "Let's see if I can cleverly arrange my words so that you have no idea what complicated concept I'm talking about yet are still able to answer my question as it pertains to the unstated subject." She sighed. "I hate politics."

"But you don't trust me," Snape said.

Hermione laughed dryly. "You were a spy for half of your natural life. I don't trust you with information. And you know that I shouldn't be. Don't tell me you aren't going to go straight to Dumbledore with our conversation, even though we're neutral right now."

Snape did not answer, but Hermione thought he looked a little hurt beyond his usual stoic expression.

"You could always have me make a wizard's oath that I will not share anything you discuss with me here. You have the authority as a Medicus to force me into an agreement," Snape said. His voice was so even that Hermione realized she had hurt him quite badly; she felt a worm of guilt travel around her stomach.

"You're a clever man," Hermione said quietly. "You could figure out a way to get past it, I'm sure. Don't take my caution personally, Severus."

He was too proud to say that he had been doing just that. "Continue," he said, pouring coffee for both of them and leaning back in his chair. His demeanor was cold, but as Hermione continued to carefully confide in him and ask him questions, he relented to Hermione's persistence. After all, she was only doing what she needed to do, and she had learned half of her caution directly from him. He could not find it in him to stay angry for long. Then again, he might just have been tired. Either way, Hermione took advantage of it and enjoyed her time away from the fortress with a remnant of her past.

"_Please extend my apologies to Remus and Harry and… anyone who cares, really. But I have to help Voldemort now. There is no neutrality, no nonpartisanship, in this assignment, and I am bound to him until his death."_

Snape had responded with equanimity to her request. Hermione supposed that he understood what it meant to be in the ambiguous, in-between place in battles. Or maybe it was not even that her position was ambiguous – she was emphatically on both sides. Outside the fortress, it was all the more confusing. It reminded her why she stayed in the fortress rather than try to find many good excuses to leave.

Sometimes it was good to have a dose of reality. Cooped up in her room, she was protected, cloistered from the world and its happenings. When it was just she and Voldemort, she did not have to think about what he did beyond the fortress walls. Although if Severus's hint regarding something monumentally significant in the future indicated anything, it was that she was going to have to think outside of the fortress very soon.

She sat exhausted on her bed. She had retrieved the tank that once held Voldemort in his Belthazar form and magically compartmentalized it so that it could hold the three sections of her animal specimens. They scrambled about, slithered, sauntered, explored their new homes. She sighed and wished she could have just bought at cat at the emporium. Maybe she could get someone else in the fortress to feed them and clean their living space. She briefly considered Wormtail – he was usually the Death Eater given the dirty, menial job – but she dismissed that as soon as it occurred to her. Nor did she trust anyone else to care for them without disrupting whatever experiment she was doing at the time. Just looking at the mice crawl over each other made her spine want to curl up into a little ball. But the creatures were good enough.

He did not knock, but Hermione felt a sense of hesitancy as Voldemort opened the door to her bathroom and slid into her room.

"I expected you back earlier," Voldemort said.

"Unfortunately, I have my own schedule to contend with," Hermione said, a little more harshly than she intended. Voldemort raised an eyebrow at her tone.

"Severus was unwell," she clarified. "And in my position, conversation with him is dodgy at best. And I hadn't anticipated having a menagerie in my room."

Voldemort blinked at the tank, the flood of memories returning to him. "Interesting choice," he finally said.

"Severus suggested it, actually. I had almost forgotten its existence," Hermione said. She could not help but stare sidelong at Voldemort and remember him again in that alternative state, the way he almost seemed a companion, an object of affection even. The moment gave her a chance to notice that his robes were of a heavier fabric than usual – stylishly double layered, but surprisingly thick for him – he preferred something in which he could move easily. He did not seem hampered in these robes, but they lent him a strange regal quality.

"Are you cold?" she asked, brow furrowing as she reached under a sleeve to feel the temperature of his skin. Under the fabric, he was warm, but his hand was cool, and as she enhanced the connection between them, she sensed just how deeply the coldness reached. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked," Voldemort said shortly. "I assumed it was one of the myriad side effects of stripping away the immortality spells."

"Side effects that you should have told me about," Hermione said.

"Side effects I thought you would feel."

"I've been recovering from the fever from those spells. It must have been beneath that," Hermione said. "Or… maybe I simply took your warmth, although I consider that unlikely."

"You've been distracted lately," Voldemort interjected. "The weather is cold. There is any number of reasons why you did not notice. But now you know."

"Are the robes enough?" Hermione asked.

"They are adequate. It is warm in my rooms – I keep the fire high. I am hardly going to sun on a rock."

The comment reminded her of something she had been meaning to do since she had returned – it also reminded her of something else, but she could not pinpoint exactly what it was.

"Walk with me," she said as she stood and headed to the bathroom. Voldemort followed her without a question. It was neither prudent nor practical to chastise her for a command, as much as Voldemort felt the compulsion to do so.

As they passed from her bathroom to his, he said, "Severus is unwell? I suppose he would be, with the most recent attacks. I believe he regrets that he was not a better spy every day of his life."

"I'm sure there are times, but I think he is happier as he is now," Hermione replied. "The duplicity wore on him as much as anything – now he only has to serve one master."

"The only master Severus ever served was himself," Voldemort murmured.

"I disagree," Hermione said. She did not elaborate. "Severus told me that something big was coming. One of many climaxes to the war, he called it. Care to elaborate?"

Voldemort was quiet as they entered his rooms and headed toward his fireplace. Hermione took a small handful of powder from his mantle and threw it into the roaring fire – Voldemort was right, he did keep it warm in there, almost tropical – before walking through the flames into his private library. She ignored the stack of books next to the table and headed toward the humming shelves. The little, fine hairs all over her body seemed to stand on end; her skin tingled. The feeling was not unpleasant.

"What do you think you're doing?" Voldemort asked mildly. He might have protested more earnestly if he were not so intrigued by the way her hands caressed the bindings he had not permitted her before. She looked as though she was returning to an old friend, and Voldemort felt a thrill of accomplishment.

"This is no time to be delicate," she said, turning to him. "If I am going to help you, I need the whole of your library. I don't know what might help. And if the curse against Lucius was any indication, the Dark Arts have left their cage. I can't protect myself and protect you at the same time. If I've bound them once, I hope that I can bind them again, or that I can control them. But either way, your case is far too unique and far too dark to wear kid gloves."

Voldemort's pleased countenance was all the answer that Hermione needed, and it sent a chill down her spine. This was a little more unpleasant, but not as bad as it might have been eight or nine years ago. She felt discomfited, but she pushed those feelings away. There was work to be done.

"You never told me what is going to happen?" Hermione said, lowering her head away from Voldemort's pleasure.

"What Severus told you was going to happen? How careless of him," Voldemort replied, leaning against the wall behind him. "Although I suppose I would have told you soon enough."

Hermione gathered potential titles as he spoke.

"It will happen near the end of the year," Voldemort began. "You are familiar with our tactics, aren't you? We are largely vigilante, very much like the Order, although we are the aggressor, and they can only try to anticipate our actions and defend against us. They still have trouble finding us in order to initiate their own aggressive acts. With the giants, werewolves, and dementors, as well as my own various factions, we can strike from various sides, while the Ministry is still inimical to the Order, although the Aurors are beginning to rebel."

When he saw that she was carrying too many of the books as she went along the row, fingers clinging the bindings, he reached over and took a few of them, setting them on the table with the others. Hermione did not quite look at him as she permitted him to take the books.

Voldemort continued, following her as she continued to search for more. "Through mutual correspondence, although that was not without its own battles, we've arranged a battle. It will be the first of its kind for us. We have pinpointed the general date as well as the location. They tried to keep me from attacking them until then, but I would have none of it, any more than they would. They also requested that it be after Christmas – I would have contended the demand, but I have the morale of my own to consider, and as much as I hate holidays, they could use a celebration. I imagine we will cement the date newer to New Year's. It would be appropriate. But it will be an older kind of battle, straight forward, face to face, a large-scale duel. I'm rather looking forward to it."

Hermione's insides seemed to turn into ice as he spoke. She knew that this was war, but she had largely been separate from it since seventh year – the description brought her closer to it again and reminded her how people she loved were going to be on the battlefield.

"What do you anticipate will happen?" she asked.

"There will be a battle, and it will be bloody. We will take prisoners and our wounded, leave our dead, and they will do the same. My army is greater, and the Order and the rogue Aurors will be much more weakened," Voldemort said. "What did you expect, Hermione? Did you think that because I was corresponding with my enemy that I would grow soft and diplomatic?"

Hermione swallowed past a lump and tightened her grip on the book in her hand, feeling the leather give to the pressure of her fingers. It was oddly comforting.

"I would, however, feel more assured, if I could reapply the immortality spells," Voldemort said with a pointed look.

"I don't know," Hermione sighed. "I don't trust what that kind of magic does to you – it kills you more than it extends your life, you know that. I don't even advocate you going into battle at all at this time."

"Find a solution, Hermione." He glanced around at his books. "You wouldn't want to be unprepared when you join me."

"I'm not going to be at the battle," Hermione said. Voldemort gave a slight hiss at the declaration. "It would not follow the Medicus laws. I would be choosing sides." But the words seemed to fall short. By being Voldemort's Medicus, that inexorably placed her on a side. She had even told Severus that she was with Voldemort, therefore had to reluctantly work against the Order. In the end, however, it was a blurred distinction that Hermione was going to have to determine on her own.

Voldemort sensed her hesitation and only murmured, "If you think that is appropriate."

"I _cannot_ be there," she said more forcefully. "I cannot be at a battle in the middle of a war, Voldemort. I can only pick up your pieces."


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Author's Notes:** Once again, I'd like to thank Honeybean for a thorough and entertaining beta. This chapter is one I've been waiting for, and by the end of it, I felt like I had drunk about three cups of strong coffee. That's the way I like to write a chapter. : ) Another bit of thanks to Sionnain for her endlessly inspiring soundtrack made for _Abyss_ and continuing into _Ascent_. Enjoy!

**Chapter 16**

Hermione's trouble with the animals was as difficult as she anticipated. More than once, she contemplated putting a stasis spell on them just to keep them from breeding or fighting or making whatever sounds they felt like they had to make at the time. She also had to adjust to Nagini's attention, who had discovered the caged buffet in Hermione's room a few days after she had returned. If one of the mice had a spell that did not hold or responded in a different way within its body, Hermione consented to feeding Nagini. The serpent eventually found that Hermione was a virtual font of treats and hovered about her master and his Medicus's chambers. Hermione permitted her free reign through the room as long as Voldemort made it perfectly clear that night time was off-limits. She had to do the standard locking spells on the tank again to protect them from Nagini's enthusiasm, and since none of the creatures within it were Animagi, the spells held.

The myriad of experimental spells she applied to them were not working as well as she thought they would on the mice, although they worked a little better on the lizards. Even when she adjusted the spells or applied new charms to fit the object, the spells would sometimes slip away for no discernable reason or irrevocably harm the creatures. She was frustrated – she had been trained to deal with witches and wizards, not rodents. The snakes and lizards were much less of a bother to deal with, though, and she could feed some of the baby mice she really didn't need to the snakes now and then.

She disliked having the animals in her room, but it was the best place for them. Instead, she spent a great deal of her time in Voldemort's library when she was not experimenting. Voldemort was spending more time in his chambers, sitting near the fire or pacing back and forth, contemplating whatever battle tactics he anticipated using. The date for the first real battle was still hesitant; she could understand why he was more anxious than usual. Hermione guessed that part of the reason he stayed in his rooms so much was so that his followers could not see how anxious he was. Instead, Death Eaters and a few of the sub-leaders of each group would come to him. Hermione heard their voices muffled through the fire. She could not come back through until they were gone, which was sometimes inconvenient, but she always had something to keep her occupied if she needed to stay where she was.

If she were completely honest with herself, she would admit that she almost never wanted to leave the library anymore. She had more than anticipated the Dark Arts' hold on her once she freed herself to them – she had practically ordered Voldemort to force her out of the library whenever he thought she needed to leave. It was more than a little embarrassing to ask him to do, to admit that her weakness was so great, but she knew that it was better she had him to hold her back instead of let her pride waste her away. The pull of the books and the Arts would eventually wane as she grew accustomed to them, but she had abstained or restrained herself from them for so long that they risked running rampant over her. There was pleasure in her frustration. If she could not find what she needed in one book, it meant that she needed to search through another. Hermione thought that sometimes she was positively giddy, drunk on the forbidden knowledge she imbued hour after hour.

It appeared, however, that Voldemort was right. The books with relevant passages had already been pulled from the shelves and sat next to the fireplace. She knew their contents backward and forward – sometimes, she was sure she dreamed about them – so she kept on with her impossible task, garnering whatever she could. For all of Voldemort's stress, he seemed almost warm whenever he saw her in his library. Hermione thought about his strange solicitude when she was tucked into her bed, wrapped in quilts against the cold seeping through the window. She knew it was somewhat similar to the way he hovered about her when he compelled her to translate Severus's journal, but not completely.

She felt the familiar weight of guilt as she realized that she was losing herself in the Dark Arts, just as Voldemort had originally planned all of eight or nine years ago. She had to tell herself that a Medicus sometimes had to dwell in the darker paths. Her client already had a sort of claim on her; therefore, there was no way that she was unscathed, and there was no way that she could have avoided these studies. It seemed that fate demanded the Dark Arts pulsing through her veins, cocooning her in its steady vibration along her skin as she drifted into sleep. Her Dark Mark, which had remained rather dormant since her presence became usual in the fortress again, began to tingle and hum again. She could not resist finding the familiarity oddly comforting.

She tried not to think about what her old friends would think. Severus had told her he would not give her reassurance because she was everything she claimed to be. Her life could not be her own anymore, if it ever had been. Her concern had to be for Voldemort. And she did not find the prospect so terrible anymore.

Sometimes, when something violently jerked her out of her dreams and her eyes opened wide to the darkness, she wondered what would happen to her if Voldemort died in the next battle.

Christmas came and went with little fanfare for Hermione, although the house elves wanted the castle to know that they were preparing a feast worthy of Yuletide. For the first time, she did not feel annoyed or angry at an interruption in her studies and experiments in order to eat at the feast with the rest of the Death Eaters. The dinner went as planned without the theatrics of the last one. She gave a passing thought to whether any of her old friends had wanted to give her a Christmas present… or at the very least a Christmas note. The spells that prevented most post in and out of the fortress would have sent any owl offering holiday joy back to its origin. Still, she did not think that she merited a happy acknowledgement from them anymore. The understanding did not dampen her appetite – she consumed three full plates, plus dessert – but it did dampen her spirits.

As soon as she finished eating, she left the room without engaging anyone in conversation and sat on her bed, watching the skittering of her animal residents through the tank, mind peacefully and determinedly blank. Hermione pushed an insistent Nagini gently away and wrapped her quilt around her. She had not bothered to light a lamp, so it was dark in the room when Voldemort entered. He lit one of the lamps nearest the bed and handed her a plain piece of parchment. In his other hand, he held a rough vellum envelope and his own letters. The handwriting on the envelope betrayed the writer as Dumbledore, but Hermione's letter was from a different hand. It took her a moment to read it, and Voldemort stood there, watching her.

_Dear Hermione,_

_We received the note you left behind for Snape. We were disappointed, but we were warned time and again that this might happen. I guess sides are inevitable. Remus says that there can be no neutrality when both sides demand a choice. I wish it weren't true. I wish you could be safe from him. As much as I resent it, it was your choice. It's even harder with what's coming._

_I don't know what will happen if we ever meet again. I continue hoping for your return for the sake of what we were, but what __are__ we now, Hermione? There are so many difficult questions that I couldn't fit onto this page, and I doubt even you can answer them. I may still not like Snape, but I guess he knows what he's talking about when he says that you tread a fine line. I try not to blame you._

_This letter has kind of become something I didn't want it to be, but every time I try to write another without all of this, it ends up insincere. So… I'll leave my doubts there. This letter was intended to send you holiday wishes, mostly good ones from those of us who love you. That, at least, will never change. I can hate what you stand for, but I won't stop loving you. Remus says that's the best gift I can give. I'm not even sure whether this will get to you or whether Voldemort will just set it on fire for spite. Both Remus and Snape say that he probably won't. I'm not sure why, although I'm sure there's some Medicus rule that commands it or something._

_Anyway, Happy Christmas! Consider our words as our gift._

_Love,_

There was a line and a half of names from the order, signatures ranging from the polite to the flamboyant, and Hermione could not help the lifting of spirits that it brought her, even if the feeling was also bitter. Voldemort did not say a word as she set the letter aside. He drew Nagini closer to him with a soft series of hisses, but he paused at the door.

"The date has been set, two days from now," Voldemort said softly. "I expect you to be ready for the battle, even if you do not plan on coming."

"Do you have any ideas how you will protect yourself," Hermione asked. "since the immortality spells can't be applied?"

"There are adequate Shielding spells that can be altered for my needs. They are not as sturdy as I would like," Voldemort replied.

Hermione rocked on her tailbone for a moment, considering a possibility. Then she pulled the quilt away and went to the laboratory cabinet to retrieve some bottles of Strengthening Solution.

"I don't know what this magic will do to you," Hermione murmured, setting them in a box and bringing them to Voldemort. "Your decay has inexplicably slowed down in spite of you continuing to use your magic. I mean, you've cut down on it, but you're still doing quite advanced curses… I thought that would do the most damage next to self-experimentation. But it hasn't quite." She handed the box to him. "These might help – more benefits than problems. I suggest you fortify yourself with them, two bottles a day. If you let me apply our connection every evening, I should be able to gage their efficacy, whether the decay progresses or regresses."

"You must not have found anything of import if you are reduced to giving me Strengthening Solutions," Voldemort said. His voice was even, but there was a bemused glint in his dimly lit eyes.

"I'm not reduced to anything," Hermione said. "It's simply something to try. Take your first tonight. You might as well."

Voldemort looked at the box and considered taking one right there in her room, but he dismissed it. "I read the letter, as I'm sure you're aware." He looked down at the uneven writing in her hand. "I don't understand your friends," he finally said.

"If it makes you feel any better," Hermione replied with a little smile – that tickle of bittersweetness from the letter expanded into something closer to a touch of happiness, "I don't really understand them either."

His nostrils flared slightly as he considered her comment. "After all these years, you still… how long did you wear my cloak after I set you free?"

The question seemed to come from nowhere. Hermione rarely spoke of her friends in front of Voldemort when he did not bring them up first, but he tended to mention them when he thought he had gained the advantage, when there was something he felt he could use. She was immediately wary, but if she avoided the question, that would be as dangerous with Voldemort as becoming angry.

"I burned it after a little less than two years," Hermione said. She could not quite look at him. Like the serpent's tank, she had not thought of the cloak for what seemed like decades. Remembering it again sparked the same conflicting feelings wearing the cloak had inspired.

"Longer than I anticipated," Voldemort murmured. He shifted the box he held so that he could face her more fully without something in the way. "A nice touch, don't you think?"

"It didn't hurt me, if that's what you mean," Hermione said. The conversation was beginning to prickle the back of her neck.

"Then what did it do for you?" Voldemort asked. His eyes narrowed in something approaching delight, feeding on her discomfort.

"If you want the truth, it was a grounding influence," Hermione said. She fought not to snap. "You were far more familiar to me than the world that you threw me into – at least after everything you'd made me do. Then it became a crutch after I'd moved beyond Hogwarts. Severus convinced me to burn it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be."

"None of them except Severus knew you wore my cloak, did they?" Voldemort ran one finger down the line of her cheek. His eyes were vaguely nostalgic. "Their goodness and light wasn't enough for you? How must you have felt when you realized that you _needed_ me…"

Hermione shuddered at his touch, drawing tension down the straining muscles of her limbs. This position was unnervingly familiar and startlingly different – she was caught between the worlds. Her hand reached up and pressed against the center of his chest. "Probably something like this."

Voldemort inhaled in a sharp hiss as Hermione dove inside him, feeling the separation of bodies, stretching out until he could feel the focus of her presence in the places of decay. She was hot where she filled him, hot against the cold of his body. He shook, fell hard against the door as he tried to breathe on his own. His free hand clutched at the wall reflexively, and still Hermione clenched harder within his. As he began to feel real pain from his unwillingness to have her inside him, Hermione was physically wrenched from his body, stumbling back. The room was thickly silent broken only by their panting breaths in the wake of the encounter.

She was confused, angry, chagrined. The good feeling left from the letter was gone, just as Voldemort had initially hoped it would be. Voldemort was flat against the door, clinging to the box of Strengthening Solution. Sweat poured down his face, and there was a slight flush of fever on his cheeks. For a moment, he almost looked human.

Part of Hermione wanted to apologize, but the other part wanted to just leave it there, let him carry it with him without giving into pity. The saner part of her realized that if there was one thing she had to control right now, it was her temper. She took a step back; the hard expression on her face remained.

"Don't forget to take your Strengthening Solution," Hermione said coldly. She felt herself begin to unravel from the inside out. Her hands were shaking, but she did not want him to see.

Voldemort swallowed, caught his breath – the air was harsh down his throat as he breathed for himself. Most of what he felt, he thought, was shock. He had read about the Medicus before requesting one, had read of accounts when the client or other people tried to hurt the Medicus only to be magically prevented and punished for it. The Medicus usually maintained a cool head in the crisis, as they were trained – rarely did the Medicus herself initiate the attack unless necessary in defense. Hermione was clearly not a typical Medicus. He knew that, for a Medicus in her position, she was inexperienced, and that he was a singular case. Voldemort was not accustomed to feeling anything strongly, except anger, maybe frustration. Presently, he felt terribly vulnerable, and he did not like it at all.

He wanted to say something. Anything. Anything to keep her from having the last word against him. But he could not think of a single thing to say to her. He reached for the door knob and left without another word. It was not a retreat – his shoulders were high and his breathing quiet again.

Now that the catalyst was out of the room, Hermione felt genuinely terrible. She, too, knew Medicus history and that the Medicus was rarely the one who caused the pain that called the magical law into affect. Her stomach filled with shame and anger that he could make her feel guilty for a perfectly normal (if ill-advised) reaction. Voldemort had been pushing and pushing, forgetting that he was pushing someone who could push back now. Remus might have told her to be the better person and simply withhold a reaction. _But I'm not the better person, Remus_, Hermione thought. She was still angry.

After some hours had passed, the door in front of her opened again. Hermione was still awake, staring at the shadows coming through the window. Without a word, Voldemort handed her a package wrapped in red and green ribbon. She knew what it was before she even took it from him. But she did take it. His expression was just as blank as hers. She stared at him and waited for him to leave. He left without looking at her, his jaw tight from the way his teeth clenched together. She wondered what he was holding back. Once the door closed behind him again, she ripped open the package.

He had given her another cloak, more intricately designed than the last one, but also meant for practical use. She did not rip it up or burn it again as she wanted to. She threw the cloak at the tank and sat on her bed, clenching and unclenching her hands.

_Breathe, Hermione. That's always the best course of action._ She could use Shannon's advice about now – another Medicus affected by the Dark Arts, and she had made it through. Then again, Shannon never had a reason to go back.

_One, two, three, four…_

She leaned down until her head was on the pillow. She ignored the call of the cloak and let the anger slowly dissipate into the night. She fell asleep thinking about the upcoming battle.

-----

Hermione waited impatiently in the audience chamber, alternating between pacing back and forth through the room and sitting by the throne, unconsciously choosing the position she had taken when Voldemort treated her as a slave. Her knees were up and her chin rested in the crevice between them. She felt like she never blinked. The battle would start any minute, and Voldemort left an hour ago with his Death Eaters and Black Dogs. She was already regretting her choice to stay away, and she did not know how any attack on Voldemort that pierced his shield charms would affect her. If any of their past experiences with pain were any indication, it would not be pleasant, even at such a distance. Her entire body seemed to quiver, bracing itself. She watched the great clock above the door as the seconds ticked by.

She felt badly from the last interaction she and Voldemort had experienced. She could not manage to apologize, but she did feel guilty. They had pointedly avoided each other in the days between, although each could feel the other under the skin. Voldemort was taking the Strengthening Solution as Hermione had told him to. She sensed it every time he took a drink, phantom warmth spreading through her veins. They crossed paths – it was inevitable when she had to go through his quarters to the library. Voldemort would follow her with his eyes. She would not look at him. Every time, she felt the Dark Mark thrum on her arm, intense in a way that it had not been in years.

Concern flooded her as the minute hand hit the half past position – the battle was beginning. Her stomach clenched reflexively. She thought that at least a little of her anxiety originated from Voldemort's. She hated that she had to wait for whatever happened, had to wait through whatever curse Voldemort took, had to wait until he returned to her. Until now, usually it was Hermione who left the fortress, enjoying the break from the tension. Now it was Voldemort who left her, and she could not help but consider whether Voldemort felt the same way at every separation. Medicus and client were not technically supposed to be physically far away from each other, especially as time passed. Hermione had not really felt the effects of that separation before, but perhaps she had made a big enough breakthrough that they had reached that level of connection. It bothered her that the connection was stronger when their strange relationship was more strained than ever. And of all things, because of her.

She angered him. She frightened him. She had exploited something she knew he practically feared, and Voldemort did not fear things lightly. There was a startling power in the knowledge and experience, which was precisely what was so dangerous about what had happened. Voldemort was accustomed to near total control of everyone and everything around him. He had already shown signs of being more than a little uncomfortable with Hermione's intimacy with him on a more equal footing, and she had taken what little truce they had developed and thrown it away. And why? A closer proximity to the Dark Arts? She knew that she had once had the ability to quell Ron and Harry with a glare once she got started on a tirade, but Voldemort was another matter altogether. She was not supposed to have the upper hand with Voldemort, and she should know better than to topple those expectations – equality was the aim, not superiority.

A wicked whisper in the back of her mind told her that it was about time she stopped being his slave and started being his master.

Her fingers fumbled with the leather string around her wrist, fiddling with the fangs threaded through. She had almost forgotten she still had these talismans. In waiting for the battle and the restlessness that came with her shame, she had looked in her wardrobe where she kept a box of keepsakes. Objects and memories of another time. She had found the small jewelry box that held the talismans that protected her from many of the horrors of the Forbidden Forest, Belthazar's dry, raspy snakeskin, and the bracelet that held his lost teeth. It was unusual to have the memories of that time before Voldemort really came into her life superimposed on the present. She nearly did not recognize the person she had become. When had she lost control?

It was barely ten minutes into the war, and already, some of Voldemort's injured followers were appearing in the audience chamber. Voldemort had ordered them to fight until there was no possible way they could have been of any use. Then, because it was only one battle and not intended to be the last one, he expected them to return to the fortress to tend to their wounds. Had they not been needed for future battles, he would have been more callous. Hermione saw vomit, blood, tears, ragged or lost limbs. Only ten minutes in. Her heart sank to her stomach, and she clenched her hand around her wand. There was no sign that Voldemort was injured, but she kept anticipating it.

She was startled to find that she was more than concerned. She was downright worried, much as she had been about Harry or Ron or other close members of the Order when they went out for some serious or silly purpose. As more and more Death Eaters and Black Dogs appeared in the audience chamber by the minute, her fingers itched to cast some sort of charm to help those nearest to her, if just to have a distraction, some confirmation that she was still the Hermione – or the Medicus – that she had been. If only to show that it was not Voldemort that did this to her. But she wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees, the snake fangs brushing against her thumb and clicking against her wand. No one noticed her there on the dais.

The clock over the door gave a strange, mechanical sigh before it called the next half hour. Hermione's own inhalation mimicked it, but her scream drowned out the ringing of the bell. This was beyond anything she had ever felt before, so much so that it could not even be called pain. She had felt Cruciatus before, and this could not compare. It was as though every inch of her was torn apart by thousands of serrated claws. The pain was only enhanced because it was not her own. She was feeling it through him – she was with him and not near him.

Her back arched, her head slamming into the cold metal of the throne, her limbs clenched, curled, and flailed, fingers grasping for purpose against an enemy she could not see. Her face was drawn, gaunt, and pale. It appeared almost alien, defined by straining muscle. Blood dripped from her nose, not from the attack, but from the force of the shared experience, and her eyes rolled back until it looked as though they had gone white. Those of the Death Eaters and Black Dogs who had recovered to some extent or who had come with those who needed another hand all turned to see her body convulse as though she were possessed. For those who knew her, it was one of the most frightening thing they had seen – for those who did not, they had nightmares long after they had forgotten. The sound did not belong to her alone.

Hermione could see. She could see through Voldemort's eyes the haze of blood, the flash of light over the grass and over his body. She heard sounds of triumph, but Voldemort still breathed in spite of the terrible curse. She felt every strain of his heart and mind as he forced himself to continue living as he had done once before. He knew she was there and not there. He knew he needed to leave while he could grip his wand with any sort of certainty, even if it was reflexive with every pulse of fire through him. He felt hands on him and thought them an enemy. His wand whipped in an arc, curses spilling from lips as he breathed. But the hands took him away from that field and back to the fortress.

Voldemort fell at the foot of his throne, blood a thick gout from his mouth as he struggled to pull his wand from Carmen's strong hand. His red eyes were filled with hatred, animalistic rage, stubborn determination, and he wrenched the wand away. The room trembled with the force of the power underlying his weakened form. He shook with seizure.

At Voldemort's appearance, Hermione's symptoms lessened until they were merely needles on her skin, as though her whole body had fallen asleep. She recognized the signs – what Voldemort was suffering was no mere headache or magical change. He was on the precipice of death, and she had been too far away. None of her other clients had been like this. Only one had died, and that one in his sleep. She had felt harsh, quick nausea with the old man's passing, but nothing like this violent upheaval, nothing like this bound protest that she needed to help him. It was not an expectation or a compulsion. She _needed_ to help him.

She rolled over and pushed herself up. This was no time to think, no time to care about propriety. She ripped open the top half of his robes: the material was soaked and stained from the massive cuts and poisons seeping through his skin. This was nothing she had seen before, although the _modus operandi_ of the spell was similar in structure and execution to one of the spells often used with great efficacy in the first war. But this was something worse, and she had no question that it was Severus's work, too. She grabbed Carmen by the collar of his robes and pulled him down until he toppled over Voldemort's side, causing a small fountain of blood to erupt from his chest.

"Hold him down," she rasped, her voice almost gone from the abuse of her screams. She positioned Carmen's hands on Voldemort's upper arms, removing the wand from his clenching hand. Voldemort watched her even as his body betrayed him, trying to rip itself apart. Carmen's strong hands and arms forced Voldemort's to cease their movements, and Hermione moved to sit on his legs. They bucked underneath her, but as she felt the needle pricks inside her grow more insistent, she nearly broke his legs to keep them down. Her teeth were harsh against each other, her face still white and garishly drawn. She forced Voldemort to look at her and plunged in, withdrawing halfway before she could lose herself in his death. She only needed to see the damage beyond its physical manifestations.

"You aren't dead," she hissed. "You won't die." She hardly realized she said it. They were not words of comfort. Her wand traced the glowing edges of the curse over his chest and face, and as she sensed the whisper of the spell in its workings, she began to cast against it. It was impulsive magic at its deepest, a skill rarely taught in schools, but something necessary to the Medicus Order. It was a skill Hermione had been terrible at, hence one that she had devoured in research and theory. If she had known what she knew now, she would not have bothered. Books could not prepare her for the litany of spells moving over Voldemort's rent flesh in both bodies. It was purely reactionary, and she felt neither pride nor surprise as the curse began to mend. Severus had cultivated it until it had no countercharm. He was a clever man with a talent for creating these sorts of spells.

But magic almost always had a counter – it was the way the world worked, and curses knew their own alternate state. This was not like Voldemort's myriad of calculated transfigurations. As dangerous as the spell was, its immediacy gave her the ability to attack it with its own quickly extinguishing power. Hermione whispered her spells until she took hold of the curse and pulled it away from Voldemort, replacing it with new flesh and blood. The replacement was not perfect – he had lost too much to repair completely what had been taken. That would require far more time and less instinctive casting. Breathing was now easier for both of them, and Carmen did not have to push Voldemort down so hard, and he watched Hermione and Voldemort with a slightly open mouth, captivated. Voldemort's eyes never left Hermione's. As long as she was half inside him, he could not look away.

When Hermione knew that the worst of Severus's curse had passed, she raised herself up on her hands and knees and wearily stood.

"Help me," she said to Carmen, her voice no more than a sigh. "We need to finish this in his rooms. It won't do for him to stay here."

Carmen did not reply, only lifted Voldemort onto the flying carpet next to him and climbed on himself. Voldemort was silent, looking at the ceiling. His form was as still as if he had died, yet his eyes glowed. The battle did not officially cease until two hours later, but neither Hermione nor Voldemort knew its end as she continued to heal him through the evening and night. Carmen stayed behind, hovering by the fire as Hermione's whispers filled the room with their power. After what seemed like an age, Voldemort's voice joined hers.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Author's Notes:** You can imagine my chagrin when I finally sat in front of my partially started Chapter 17 and realized it had been three years since my last update. However, I promised that I wouldn't abandon the story, and I plan to uphold that promise. With about five or seven more chapters to go, I hope to finish this novel soon. I may not have a lot of time as a full-time employee and full-time student, but I'm willing to make the effort. Abyss/Ascent is worth it to me. I also hope to go back through Abyss and earlier chapters of Ascent to clean it up a bit (especially the excess of ellipses that became more obvious to me over time). Thanks to Bean for the edit, with her colored text and whip at the ready.

**Chapter 17**

She woke with her face pressed against Voldemort's side. His flesh was neither warm nor cold to the touch. At first, she did not want to move. She had no idea what time it was or how long she had cast healing spells or when Voldemort had regained enough strength to aid her with his own limited knowledge. She only knew with certainty that every inch of her body ached, which was probably nothing in comparison to how Voldemort felt. With a concerted effort, Hermione raised her head.

The bed showed evidence of dried blood, the covers and quilts rumpled from the efforts of all three of them. Carmen, too, had fallen asleep near the foot of the bed on his carpet, floating a few inches from the bed. Voldemort was not asleep. His crimson eyes were open and glittering as they stared at the ceiling. He looked down at her when Hermione pushed herself up. She groaned as she felt her joints crack. She ached to fall back onto the mattress but thought that she had encroached on Voldemort's tenuous hospitality long enough.

"How do you feel?" Hermione muttered, twisting her neck from side to side to work out the tension that seemed to have knotted in one big clump at the base.

"How do you think?" Voldemort asked. His voice was neither accusing nor unkind, simply straightforward. "I feel like Severus's hex series very nearly killed me. I suppose I should show a great amount of gratitude, for both you and Carmen. I don't expect I will ever tell him, but I can tell you."

Hermione blinked. She wanted to say something but felt it imprudent to comment on such an unusual confession.

"I'm not finished," Hermione replied. "I only healed what needed my immediate attention, and I'm not sure whether the surface improvements will hold, especially if your own magic decided to reject any incompatible inclusions."

His ribs expanded as he inhaled, but his breath caught and his chest contracted as he winced at some internal pain. Everything external was healed and white with only the pearly ghosts of scarring where Severus's hexes had ripped him apart. With his silent permission, Hermione entered into him briefly to assess his condition. It was better than she anticipated, just some residual tearing in places that she had tried to heal during her intuitive casting. Hissing as her muscles protested every movement she made, Hermione crawled over to Carmen and gently shook him awake.

"Yes, lady?" he muttered, his eyes bleary as he pushed himself up. He looked considerably less pained than Hermione or Voldemort. Hermione had not thought to check Carmen for any injury from the battle, but he did not appear to have sustained any curses or hexes. If he had, Carmen had dealt with them on his own.

"If you could, I'd appreciate if you'd find a house elf to bring some food in here while I continue healing."

"You mean that fabulous show last night was not enough?" Carmen asked. He looked at his master, noting that Voldemort had not moved an inch from where Carmen had seen him before falling asleep himself.

"It was foundational, and it saved him," Hermione replied. "The more thorough healing requires a more intricate series of spells. We managed quite a few of them before we…"

"Passed out?" Carmen offered.

"Yes, that. Food please, Carmen," she said.

"Right away, lady," Carmen replied, and he flew toward the door. He paused there at the threshold and turned back to where Hermione and Voldemort still rested. "My lord, do you want to know the outcome of the battle?"

"I suspect," Voldemort said quietly, "that we lost."

Carmen flushed a little on his dark cheeks. "But would you like a full report?"

"Yes," Voldemort replied, staring at the ceiling again. Carmen nodded without another word and left the room, shutting the door behind him. He knew better than to dwell too long on the subject of their loss.

It had been an experiment, something for the history books. When Voldemort paid attention back in History of Magic, he remembered the grandiosity of the wars, of the great battles, and he had considered such a battle for himself in the first war. Now that his numbers were so great, he wanted to try, anticipated a sweeping triumph and perhaps even an end to this tedious war. Although the Order had been outnumbered, they seemed to react better to face-to-face, hand-to-hand combat in contrast to the ingenuity and aggressive strategy of Voldemort's usual guerilla tactics. He had been confident that he would dominate the battlefield as well, but the Order had the unconsidered advantage of Hogwarts house elves and rogue Aurors. It was a small but significant advantage on their part. They also exhibited a few inventive proclivities – a few, but enough. The Weasley twins, for example, proved unusually formidable in the battle, even if one had been put out of commission near the beginning. And of course, there was Severus, with his instinctive grasp of magic. Voldemort had been fortunate that Hermione could engage with Severus's intricate spells. He had never seen her use intuitive magic before and suspected that it was not her usual talent.

The battle had started out in the Order's favor, with spectacular bangs here and there disabling Voldemort's troops courtesy of experimentation and invention. He had cruelty and mercilessness on his side, but the Aurors possessed the same qualities supported by their own self-righteousness. Time had improved the numbers on the Order's side as well as the skill. Potter's style was clumsy, but Voldemort acknowledged that he had enough power that rendered any grace or range nearly unnecessary. Intensity and unintelligence on the part of some of his inhuman allies accounted for the massacre of the Order's first-line troops, but their efficacy had been anticipated by the Order. When it came to direct strategy, Voldemort drastically underestimated his opponents. Next time – and there would be a next time – Voldemort would not be so foolish. He would not humiliate himself again.

He would have greater protection than Shielding Charms, even those of his own design. Voldemort swore to himself in the silence that Hermione could no longer dismiss the necessity of his immortality spells and other forms of defense. His caution on the battlefield had made him hesitant in a situation in which he could not be hesitant. He could not be crippled like this again.

Hermione made her way to the head of the bed and adjusted one of the pillows so that she could rest sitting up. She sighed in relief as she lay back. "Can you move?" she asked.

"I can," Voldemort answered. "But I do not hurt when I stay still."

"Try," Hermione replied. "It will ease the muscles."

"I notice that you are not moving very much yourself," Voldemort said.

"At least I _am_ moving."

Voldemort groaned as he forced himself to sit up next to her, but she was right and each second made it easier to move in spite of the pain in his stomach.

"Is this how it feels when you milk Nagini?" Hermione asked. Her eyes were closed as she rested her head against the headboard.

"My muscles do ache when she gives me her poison, but I also grow sluggish and dizzy, and that is nothing like I feel now," Voldemort said. "Are you going to heal me, or are you going to ask inane questions?"

Hermione smiled slightly, but she knew that he was deadly serious. "I should not use magic on you again until I've eaten something substantial. The last thing I want to do is faint in the middle of an essential incantation. Between the sympathetic effects of the curses on you and the reparative magic, I don't trust myself with a wand."

Voldemort was silent for a moment. "Sympathetic effects. How sympathetic?"

"You know about those. I've felt them before and responded to them by helping you," Hermione said.

"Not enough to incapacitate you," Voldemort replied. "I've seen you cast more draining spells without fainting. You're nearly as immobile as I am."

Hermione opened her eyes again and looked at him. "You were dying a painful death. I felt every inch of it. It was… it was almost as though I were there. I saw through your eyes for a few moments. Enough to know I was feeling most of your pain, if not all of it."

"It seems an impractical ability for a Medicus to have, to feel every bit of pain and suffering of their client if the Medicus is meant to cure those with pain and suffering," Voldemort said.

Hermione shook her head. She could hear her tendons creak. "It's never been this way before. Ever. I'll admit that I have limited experience in the area, but… you were far away, and you were dying. And it nearly tore me apart until you were next to me again."

Voldemort did not comment on the matter of proximity to him. He did not have to. He had said he trusted her judgment when he first requested her presence at his side, but Hermione knew he wanted her there with him on the battlefield as long as he was vulnerable.

Once Carmen had brought them all food – Voldemort surprisingly had an appetite, consuming all his meat but only picking at the rest – Hermione was able to work with the rest of the damage, most superficial. When he stood from the bed, he needed Carmen's help to find his footing. Hermione thought that, were he a typical client, she would force him back into bed to rest. But she knew it would be fruitless to do so. All of his Death Eaters knew that he had fallen, and he had to show that he was not defeated, although such a public loss would severely damage his standing in the eyes of his followers. Somehow, he had to contain the dissidence among them and prove that there could be victory. That meant showing that he was not weakened at all, that instead he was fueled by the loss, driven to a more passionate fight against the other side.

She should have pulled the comforter over him and knocked him out with a Stunning spell, but instead, she helped him pull on another pair of heavy robes. The last pair was drenched in blood and torn; house elves would clean and repair them later. As he did up the fastenings, Hermione fetched some Strengthening Solution. It would only be temporary, but it would hopefully give him strength long enough to get through the next few hours without toppling over.

"They'll know how bad it was, which means that they'll know I healed you," Hermione said. "Do you want me there, or do you want them to see you alone?"

"For now, alone," Voldemort said. His voice was strained, but he uncorked the Strengthening Solution and drank it down in two swallows. She thought it brought some life to his face the way the blood replenishing spells had not, but that could have been wishful thinking. He kept his head back for a moment, inhaling slowly through his slitted nostrils as he waited for the potion to take effect. With the high color of his robes, the column of his pale neck seemed even longer than usual.

"I shouldn't go, not so soon after, but I think I need to leave for a few hours. If you really have no need of me, if I would only subvert your message…"

"Then go." He sounded a little stronger, and he squared his shoulders, pulling his wand out from the tangled and bloodied sheets. He gripped it firmly, and she remembered how he had joined her in the healing spells once she had staved off the worst of the curse effects. Even at his weakest, he was still a powerful man – she did not know whether he could be anything else. If he did not have that power, if he could not have that power, it would be the day he died. For a second, Hermione wished that he could keep his magic tethered to his physical body by sheer force of will, the way that he had stayed alive for fourteen years after the Killing Curse backfired on him. As she watched him then, she wished it were so, cold as it made her feel.

She leaned over and whispered in Carmen's ear. "Watch him. Please."

"You don't need to worry about me," Voldemort said softly, almost a purr. He then strode out of the room, his boots clicking sharply on the stone in the corridor. It was as if he had never been a hair's breadth from death, although the lingering stiffness and exhaustion Hermione felt told her otherwise.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Carmen replied. "But I don't think he'll need it today." Hermione did not either, although it meant that he would once again ignore her recommendation to curb the use of his magic, not hours after he had already overextended himself.

"I won't be gone long," she said. She Summoned her cloak to her and Disapparated.

v88888v

Hermione knocked on the door to Shannon Langley's quarters at the Medicus Order dormitories, hoping that she would be between clients and that she would not have to track Shannon down. To her relief, her mentor came to the door promptly.

She did not say anything when she saw Hermione at the door. She did not even look surprised. Her hand took Hermione's quietly and guided her inside. Shannon poured the tea and let Hermione settle into her chair, closing her eyes and breathing in the steam.

"Does the Dark Lord still live?" Shannon asked then. "The Wireless is saying they don't know yet."

"He's alive. The war is not yet over." Hermione sighed.

"You look terrible."

"It was a long night," Hermione said. She had not looked in a mirror before leaving the fortress, but she could imagine how she looked. Blood-stained clothes and hands, hair like a bramble bush, and dark circles deep under her eyes. However, her reason for visiting her old mentor was more important than tending to her appearance.

Shannon set down her tea cup and leaned forward on her elbows. Her face was a little more lined then when Hermione was apprenticed to her, but she appeared mostly the same – severe and somehow soft at the same time. Her gray eyes peered at Hermione.

"But it's more than that, isn't it?" Shannon said.

Hermione set her own tea down as well and ran her hands over her hair in a futile attempt to smooth it down.

"I was too far away from him when he was attacked. At least I think that's the reason. It was almost as though they were killing me through him." Hermione rubbed her lower ribs, which still ached with phantom memory. "I don't think I can leave him alone in this, but… how can I do this, Shannon? I don't know how I am supposed to be his Medicus and remain impartial. I've discussed that at length with the Elders, that there is no such thing as a truly nonpartisan Medicus. I can't imagine what the Oracle was thinking when it assigned me to him: a Medicus who couldn't be impartial even if she tried." She began pacing, her gestures becoming more pointed and forceful. "And now I don't know what to do for him. I cannot help him without taking his side and possibly tipping the scale of the war. That's decidedly not neutral. But I cannot, as a sworn Medicus, abandon him when he most needs my healing. No matter what I do for Voldemort, I break my vow to this Order. I just don't know what to do."

"And it's consuming you, isn't it? The Dark Arts, surrounded by it as you are. I don't have to look into your aura to see it, plain as day," Shannon said, standing. "When I heard about your binding to the Dark Lord, I knew it was a risk."

Hermione nodded. Shannon may have taught her how to keep the Dark Arts reined in, but that was for living in the world at large, where the Dark Arts were uncommon and discouraged – much as an addict must avoid his old haunts and contacts to avoid temptation.

Hermione stopped pacing and held out her hands, as though in supplication. "I did my best to fight them, but I can't heal him and resist them at the same time. To heal him is to use them."

Shannon sighed. "Believe me, Hermione, I understand. You don't have to justify yourself to me."

"Maybe you're not the one I'm justifying myself to."

"No Medicus could be better for him," Shannon said. "Do you see that?"

Hermione rubbed the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut tight. She shook her head. "No, I don't. I understand that there were aspects about the Dark Lord for which I was uniquely suited to know that another Medicus would have had to learn over time. But I can't see why the Oracle chose someone who could not be neutral to what the Dark Lord is. To the world, and to me."

"I remember the arguments that you had with the Elders about nonpartisanship," Shannon said, leading Hermione back to the sofa. "The trouble was that you could never see past your own experience."

Hermione let herself be herded and guided to sit down. "I'm listening."

"You know Medicus history. Since its inception, Medicus women have played many roles for their clients: healer, companion, lover, bodyguard. Whatever they needed. You say that if you help the Dark Lord or if you don't, you are breaking your vow of neutrality." Shannon took Hermione's face in her hands, stroking her cheeks lightly with her thumbs. Hermione could not quite look straight at her. "But a true Medicus is unconcerned with these questions. It isn't a failing if you have them. Medicus are human, and even with our vows, we still cannot always escape our own opinions and emotions. Nor should we. But it comes down to our simple calling, beyond those opinions and emotions, beyond the politics or lack thereof: to save our client. Nothing more, nothing less."

When Hermione raised her eyes to meet Shannon's, she felt unbearably cold. Somehow, she had always known the answer, but she had not wanted to believe it.

"Even if it means I help Voldemort win?"

"Yes."

"You would want that?"

"No," Shannon replied. She reached for her tea and took a sip. "Speaking truthfully as myself, no. As a Medicus, though, it means nothing to me – dynasties rise and fall. However, it wouldn't surprise me if he rose to power because you were at his side."

Hermione stood up again, her pale face yielding to an uneven flush of anger. "So why doesn't the other side just hire up a Medicus or two if that's all it takes to win a war? All they would have to do is bind someone to Harry and Albus and then we would be stuck in a détente, since no one would actually be able to attack the Medicus saving them."

"You know it's not that simple," Shannon replied calmly. "It has to be a legitimate ailment or need – not just the need to be protected in battle. Even more than that, the nature of the ailment has to be beyond the resources and expertise of the mediwizard community or require the almost constant presence of a healer. The Oracle reserves the right to deny any request if it does not meet the standards. The Medicus are worth every Knut their clients pay."

"But that's what it comes down to," Hermione said. "Protecting him in battle, shielding him from spells in a war that he chooses to fight. They won't be able to attack me in order to weaken him, not without the wrath of the Medicus Order called down on their heads. But he would be able to send out spells, and I could, too, in the interest of protecting him. For Merlin's sake, Shannon, how the hell does that make me nonpartisan? I might as well tattoo the Dark Mark on my face and start killing Muggles." She wasn't gesticulating or pacing now, but her expression became more and more agitated.

"If it weren't you, what would any other Medicus do?" Shannon asked. Her voice broke through the thickness of the air between them. Hermione felt like something was building up, roiling cold under her tense muscles and fingers tight around her arms. "What is the most basic thing that we do?

"Above all, a Medicus attends to what her clients _needs_, no matter what it is. If he needs you to be his warrior, you will send the hounds of hell on the heels of his enemies. If he needs you to embrace the Dark Arts and join him at his side, then you will strike fear into the hearts of his followers. If he needs these things, Hermione, don't think about what he stands for. All that matters is that you are his Medicus, soul-bound to him for the duration of his or your life."

Hermione clenched her hand around her wand, and her half-fall tea cup flung itself against the stone wall next to the window. There was a shattering of glass, and jagged edges reflected the cold, misty light from the overcast sky. A quick _Reparo_ had it good as new on the carpet. Hermione's hand remained white-knuckled around the handle, but she stared sightlessly through the window into the mist. Shannon had not flinched – she recognized that Hermione was showing considerable restraint. She approached Hermione slowly, recognizing the almost palpable chill radiating from her young protégé. With her specialty in the Dark Arts, the older Medicus knew that knick-knacks could be fixed, but a Dark soul – especially one bound to a Darker soul – required caution. Hermione had always been stubbornly opposed to the darkness that had encroached upon her soul in her ignorance. But with the permission, even encouragement, to use those too seductive arts for the man who had helped cultivate them, the man against whom she had fought….

Gently, mindful of her sensitivity, Shannon slipped her arms around Hermione's shoulders. The girl was hard, unmoving, arms stiff at her sides. Shannon still held her close enough to feel her heart beating.

Then she whispered in Hermione's ear, "It may be the last thing that he wants, but you'll be what he needs."

As the words sank in, she folded her arms and held Shannon back. The embrace was not tight or emotional, and their hands were gentle on the other's shoulders. Hermione pulled away, rubbing the dry, bruised skin under her eyes.

She did not say thank you, but her expression was not quite as stony as it had been. She nodded to Shannon. "I need to be getting back."

"I know." Shannon wanted to kiss the girl, for luck, for patience, for strength, but she simply stroked the air after Hermione Apparated away. "Good luck."

v88888v

When Hermione pulled open the heavy doors to the audience chamber, she caught the tail end of Voldemort telling his followers that there would be another battle. She did not know what he had done to convince them that there was something still worth fighting for, that he was still powerful enough for their full numbers to be as quiet as obedient children. After returning from her meeting with Shannon, she had stopped by her quarters to change into her official Medicus robes. Her skin and hair were free of any traces of blood, and she had corralled her hair into a loose knot at the back of her head. She still needed to sleep, feeling her extremities tingling with manic, borrowed energy. As she raised her hands to push the door shut behind her, the loose sleeves of her robes fell back. Loose sleeves were impractical in midwinter, but the blue satin slithered down over her forearms, baring the Dark Mark with ease.

The irony was not lost on her that these robes had been altered from her Head Girl wardrobe. Her face was warm, flushed where it was not wan. There was a sense all at once that she was unbearably old and young, and it occurred to her that this fortress would always be home.

"You overestimated yourselves and so went into the battle thinking that you could defeat them with less than full committal, energy, passion. I, too, was complacent when so many of our other avenues of attack were so successful. After the New Year, our two sides will meet again."

Once again, his voice seemed to carry over the throng effortlessly. Perhaps it was the acoustics of the room. Perhaps it was Voldemort's magnetism, still remarkably intact after all that had happened the previous evening. He did not speak loudly, and yet Hermione did not have to strain to hear him – she could barely hear herself breathe.

"And when we do, remember this: I will not be defeated. This world thought me defeated before, and each time, I returned stronger. More determined than before to bring them to their knees before me, with all their foolishness and weakness. Look upon my mark you carry: a man who creates such a mark does not hide, does not cower, does not let one loss deter him. For thirteen years, I chose to live while my followers forgot me and feared my return. They dare not make that same mistake."

He paused, his fingers clenching around his wand. "But I am _here_, standing before you today, with the cowards of the battlefield laid low at my hands, as an example to the others among my followers who believe that one lost battle has left me fallen."

His eyes had been tracking each of his followers in the crowd, seeing into their minds to gauge their fear of him. They met Hermione's. He was staring straight at her when he continued. "Make no mistake. I have not fallen. I will not fall. When the next battle comes, I will not be taken by surprise to challenge your loyalty again. You will see the wrath of Lord Voldemort fall upon my foes. Not one shall escape the full extent of my power. And you, my followers, will lay to waste their blemished, unclean flesh. In the dawn of a new year, my Death Eaters, Black Dogs, and Cats' Paws will feast."

He raised his wand high, slicing in a graceful arc and stabbing the air above him. A wordless Morsmordre burst over the ceiling, the grinning skull widening its mouth for the passage of the serpent. Swept away by their Lord's passionate words, his followers all raised their own wands in a shout, then another and another, feeding the spell in the air with their energy and growing enthusiasm. Perhaps when they were out of the audience chamber and left to their own thoughts, the doubts would creep back in. But in his presence, as furious as he was that they had seen him so weak – so weak that he could not hide it – he was in rare, captivating form.

She waited as they were dismissed to continue to tend to their wounds and build up strength for the next battle to come. There were murmurs and glints of excitement in their eyes as they passed by her. She moved to the side but did not bow her head to avoid their looks. She held herself straight and composed. Some of them skirted around her, and some of their excitement faded from their eyes when they saw her. She was a reminder that their lord was not well in spite of how he presented himself, that their lord had to be saved. But there was no outright hostility, not even from those who had stood with Lucius in rebellion against Voldemort because of her.

When the last of them were crowded near the door and their footfalls began to echo in the empty space they left behind them, Hermione walked down the center carpet leading to the throne. Voldemort had lowered himself into it, looking more relaxed than Hermione thought he was. He did not close his eyes in weariness. They were alert, alive, peering up at her after she climbed the stairs and stood before him. He took in the stiffness of her stance, the clean and crisp robes, the wand held at her side, the sweep of her hair from her thin neck and the shadows pooled above her clavicle. So close to him, she knew he was exhausted and would use the next few days himself to recuperate, but those eyes…

"I've had more spectacular losses, but not many. And after the worst one, most of my followers fled in fear and disloyalty," Voldemort said. "I'm afraid that the primary reason that did not happen this time is because my followers no longer had anywhere to flee to."

"You sell your charisma short," Hermione said. "I think they bought it."

"Did you?"

"Most of it. Only because I know better what ails you. So the next battle is the day after New Year's?"

"Early that morning, yes," Voldemort replied. "The only consolation that I have is that Dumbledore's letter sounded like their army needed to recover as well. I will be ready. Did you find the answers you sought?"

She could not look him in the face as she fought not to kneel before him. It somehow seemed the right thing to do, but at the same time, it was all wrong.

"You won't have to go into battle without any defenses this time," Hermione said.

"Oh, you will let me have my immortality spells back?" The question was window-dressing. The pleasure hooded his eyes and made his wide mouth stretch into a curled, guiled smile. He wanted her to say it.

"No. I swore that, to the best of my ability, I would protect you from anyone who tries to hurt you, and I will heal you when they do. I will fight at your side."

He held out a hand for her to help him stand. She took it automatically, waiting until he had steadied himself. He did not let go of her as he pressed his lips lightly on her forehead. Her eyes closed in spite of its seal of approval. There was warmth in his palm from her own heat, but his mouth was cool.

"I didn't ask for a Medicus to win," he murmured near her ear. "But I think I just might. Come."

v88888v

She woke up before dawn the day after New Year's. A quick warming charm through the room, and she slid out from under the covers to get dressed. Nothing ceremonial this time, just a practical set of Medicus work robes. The sleeves were fitted. She would need full range of movement. A moment's pause, and she pulled down the cloak Voldemort had given her. With the shift of air as she pulled it over her shoulders, she felt herself settle into memory. It seemed fitting that she wear it. She wondered when she would earn her own silver hand. But her eyes were too dry to wallow for too long. Her lips were thin as she closed the door of her wardrobe. She couldn't look in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door.

If she thought about what she was going to do in about an hour and a half, she might freeze. Her hands were warm as she pulled the cloak around her, but the pit of her stomach and the base of her spine felt like cold stone. All she needed was a set of manacles around her wrists and a transfigured set of Severus's clothes. Once again, she pushed the guilt aside. She couldn't keep doing this. There were only a few people in the wizarding world who she still wished to please, and most of them knew that she was only doing her job – and these days, that job was like an Unbreakable Vow. After today, they may not accept that answer, but the Medicus Order (and perhaps Severus, of all the members of the Order of the Phoenix) would still take her in. And at least she knew – she _knew_ – that she did not want to be doing this.

Hermione did not bother knocking as she went through the bathrooms to Voldemort's chambers. He was sitting in his armchair in front of the blazing fire with his robes wrapped around him. He did not look like he had slept, but there was an empty vial of Strengthening Solution on the table next to him, and he seemed alert and focused. He looked up when she came in.

Without preamble, he said, "I will need to go to the battle site first. You will Disapparate with me. The rest will follow in an hour. The battle starts precisely at first light – his phoenix will sound the call." He turned back to the fire, face expressionless.

"That's very generous of you," Hermione said.

"I'm willing to abide by the rules of engagement, with some room for improvisation, of course. Even the most formal duelists sometimes break the rules and accept their penalty in order to get the upper hand. In this case, however, like chess, the rules must be acknowledged. It is easier to maneuver within their confines, and those rules were why I wanted to try a direct battle at all. I can play chess on a board, but can I play chess on a battlefield?" Voldemort pushed himself standing, again reminding Hermione of the speed at which wizards could heal from terrible wounds, with the right magic. He was not cured by any means, but his health was as it was before the battle, save a few scars.

"Should we lose again in spite of the tactical changes, I will resume the more covert attacks that have been so successful since the beginning." He spoke a little softer then, as though talking to himself, "Successful, but not enough to conquer them. We are both gaining numbers as we are losing them. A stalemate like this cannot be sustained indefinitely. We must cripple them now, wipe out their numbers so that they cannot withstand ours."

He walked around the armchair and met here in the middle of the room. "You may believe that I live for this war, that I need it to continue because it is my nature to fight. I will admit that I do relish good torture, a good kill, and I don't care what I destroy in my path, if it is in my way. But I fought this war to win, Hermione, not to fight for the rest of my life. Which I intended to last forever. My quest was power, not destruction. And here I am, with more power than ever but still without the power that I have sought these last twenty years – now even without power that I once had. I'm sure that you are glad to hear it, that after all these years of running up the hill, I'm finally beginning to slip down."

Before she could answer, he closed a hand over her shoulder and pulled her into Side-Along Apparition. She stumbled against him for a moment, startled when her feet hit the ground of a wide, empty field. She did not know where they were – none of the geography looked familiar to her, not even based on descriptions that she might have read somewhere. It was still frigid cold, and she applied a warming charm to Voldemort when she saw he had not done so himself. Only when he turned to survey the stretch of field, peering over the roll of shallow hills, did she realized he had spoken the first words of doubt that she had heard from him. And he had shared it with her willingly.

"Slipping was inevitable at some point. However," she added a little grimly, "that doesn't mean that the time for your downfall is now."

"And you'll see to it, won't you?" He could have made the statement cutting, knowing, cruel. But instead, it was simply stated.

"I'll see to it that you don't die on this battlefield. That doesn't mean you won't lose. It's up to you or your followers to see that the day is won," Hermione replied.

He gave a harsh laugh. "Even if I am the last one standing and they cannot take me because you are at my side, I'm not sure I could count that as a loss."

"What shielding spells do you prefer? I would rather put them up myself – just so that you don't do any unnecessary spellwork until the battle itself."

An hour later, still dark but for a slightly lighter haze on the horizon, and the field was covered with shifting, restless bodies. Torches cast yellow light over the hoods and heads of one side and the other, separated by a fifty meter stretch of bare earth, the demilitarized zone. Most of the soldiers for each side were there, and those who weren't would be locked out of the shield spell that covered Voldemort's followers like a force field. There was a similar one shimmering slightly over Dumbledore's Army. From what Hermione could see, the Army's numbers were surprisingly small, but there was a considerable variety of soldiers: young and old, experienced and green, poor and rich. She could see the deep maroon of Auror robes in pockets here and there among the Army crowd. Near the back, the core leaders were kept safe, just as Voldemort and Hermione stayed away from the front lines of Voldemort's shadowy battalion.

Even with the shields up, Hermione kept a series of shields of her own making around herself and Voldemort. They were not impenetrable, but they were of Medicus design, which meant curses that could weaken and ultimately dissolve the shields were not common knowledge. Voldemort had, against her better judgment, erected an additional shield around his most valuable Death Eaters who surrounded the two of them in a series of concentric circles.

Although the crowds' murmurs were a steady drone, there was not much conversation. Voldemort stood at an angle with his right foot planted in front of him, ready to thrust forward with his first attack. Hermione stood three quarters turned away from him, so that she could cover his back and still see what was happening in front. She was warm under her charm, but her breath still fogged the air, and as the gray haze at the horizon lightened further, it billowed from her mouth in quivering little bursts. Regardless of her connections, regardless of her position as a Medicus and therefore untouchable, she was still undeniably terrified. She may have been a key figure in the war, but it had never been like this – never an outright battle like this. It had been bad enough when she worried about a handful of people at a time. She looked across the demilitarized zone and felt fear for all of them – but strangely, she also looked over Voldemort's followers and felt the same fear for some of them. Not all of them. Some she could stand dropping dead on the spot. But some she thought could stand a second chance. At the very least, she was not ready for them to die.

The moment that the gray haze tinged pink, Fawkes lifted into the air like a firework and gave a haunting call over the killing fields. The reaction was like a wave, from the front lines to the back as wands were arched and pointed at the enemy.

The first sets of curses were mild – the goal at this point was to wear down the shielding spells and to find enough weaknesses to push through. It would be a waste of energy and intention to let loose with the stronger spells before they could even harm the opponent. A few people on each side were hit by a penetrating spell, some collapsing under Jelly Legs or doubling over with Rictusempra, others vomiting onto the grass or losing their eyesight or being attacked by bees or locusts. Simple curses, something a student would use in Hogwarts halls.

The shields wouldn't last. If they had been put up more strongly – like those over the Quidditch World Cup during her fourth year, or over Hogwarts – then it wouldn't be much of a fight. The shields were simply meant to buy time. The shields around each faction's leader, however, would be trickier to break down.

The shielding spell over Dumbledore's Army faltered first, but the shield over Voldemort's followers was not far behind. The Death Eaters raised their wands and in one accord a giant wave of boiling water shot up from their wands and crashed down on Dumbledore's Army. Most had managed to cover themselves in a strong Bubble-Body Charm, but those who didn't and were still conscious Disapparated off the field to tend to their scalded bodies. Some Portkeys were created for the unconscious. But many couldn't spare the attention, and the reddened, blistered bodies just stayed there on the battlefield. Although she was too far away to see details, Hermione felt as though her eyesight had somehow magnified. She didn't need to see it closely to see them well enough.

The water gave way to steam as Dumbledore's Army countered with an enormous hand of fire, stretching out in more than five fingers over Voldemort's followers. Voldemort took control of the countermeasures, sweeping his arm around and under to push it up away from the black hoods before him. The hand swirled up and shot in a pillar into the sky before trying to curl back at the other side. Dumbledore, a blaze of blue and white behind the stronger shield, transfigured the fire into black burning tar that dripped down over the Death Eaters and Black Dogs. Voldemort conceded the attack and transfigured the tar into cool water. Death Eaters and Black Dogs were forced to remove their hooded cloaks that were now coated with the heavy, sticky, hot tar. There was no time to clean them, only to discard them.

The Black Dogs were the first to regroup, defending themselves and the Death Eaters against the volley of individual curses flung at them in the midst of their distraction, then throwing a few curses of their own. Both sides were violent, and while Dumbledore's Army was less likely to use Unforgiveables, that did not mean some of the soldiers didn't use them. And as Hermione had often noted: some curses that weren't Unforgiveable could be even more effective and terrible. Here on this battlefield, they were unbound by restrictions of peacetime and civilization. This was not about honor or protection; it would not do to simply be on the defensive. Both sides had to attack.

Hermione was surprised at how little Voldemort and Dumbledore – and the small circles around each leader – themselves fought. On occasion, there was a grand gesture against the other. She didn't know what their strategy was during the last battle, but the strategy this morning seemed to be to let the soldiers fight. Voldemort had taught his followers how to do most of the more damaging spells. For the few who had the power to wield the giant spells that could attack whole sections of the opposing army, Voldemort left it to them until there was a lull in battle. However, once the first sweeping attacks were made against each other, most of the fighting devolved into one-on-one dueling or small group against small group. Once the sun rose and flooded the green and bloodied earth in amber, the two factions had clashed and mingled in the middle. Slowly, the mix of different-colored robes started to widen toward the rear of each army, and the circles of protected and powerful followers nearest to the generals were broken.

Hermione tensed. Most glancing spells hit the shields, but a direct blow would be more of a concern, especially from a more powerful wizard or witch. The shield charm was strong, stronger than most, but it had its weak areas like any form of protection.

As Voldemort raised his wand to begin attacking the members of Dumbledore's Army closest to him, Hermione forced herself to hold back, to breathe in and out in a steady rhythm, to try to be aware of everything around her: the garbled nonsense of a thousand screamed spells at once, the stomping of feet, the crack of Apparition when the wounds became too much, the sound of Voldemort hissing spells in succession through the shields. She needed to find the silence in herself to be the best bodyguard for him – and she needed to hope that Dumbledore's Army would respect the navy blue of her robes. God help them if they didn't. While she dearly needed to protect Voldemort, she had no desire to see the other side lose.

With the first direct blast against the shield, Hermione almost fell back. The spell exploded in blue fire, deafening and disorienting her. Voldemort grabbed her wrist in time and with his left hand pointed his wand at the sky again. She couldn't hear his chanting with her damaged, dampened hearing – underneath the sensation of hearing through cotton, there was also the ringing of tinnitus. She was still a bit stunned, but at least her shield withstood it. When she finally found her balance again, she charmed her ears to heal. Her hearing came back with a pop.

Voldemort was still muttering, but she was more concerned about the white beard and mops of black hair and red hair coming her way. She could see them even through the mass of bodies between them. Her fingers brushed Voldemort's arm, and she stepped forward until she was half in front of him. Waves of hot rose light pulsed from her wand, not from any spell, but from a combination of the need to fortify the shield with her focus and the waves of fear that sank her stomach to somewhere between her knees. She couldn't see Severus with them or Remus, and that was a relief, but looking Ron in the face was surprisingly difficult to do – twisted in hatred as it was. The image pulled her right back to eight years ago, with explanations pouring in a font from her lips. The tip of his wand made an arc in the air before pointing directly at her. She focused on the shields and intuiting the spell before he finished casting it so that she could apply the counterspell if he was going to be _so colossally stupid, please Ron, don't do this, don't throw it all away_.

Harry almost tackled Ron to stop him from cursing her. The curse went wild, hitting a Death Eater who was preparing to Apparate out. The spell was Snape's, the Sectumsempra spell, but the original form rather than the one that Snape had perfected to use against Voldemort. Perhaps it was a testament to how long she had accepted his hatred of her that it didn't tear up her heart like it tore apart the Death Eater's flesh.

"Don't be a fool!" Harry shouted as they stumbled. A few Aurors deflected the spells around them so that their generals could focus on Voldemort and Hermione. It was the only reason one of them wasn't dead right now. "I told you, you can't attack her, you know you can't!"

"Merlin, you're still defending her, and she's fucking defending _him_!" His entire face was flushed in anger.

"She's doing her job," Harry said. His voice was quiet, but she could hear him, even through the din. She locked eyes with him, but she never stopped paying attention to Dumbledore. The old man might be insistent on Harry killing Voldemort because of the prophecy, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to disable Voldemort if given the chance. Hermione flung a defensive deflective charm behind her as she heard the whistle of a spell coming directly at the shields, then brought her wand back in front of her, posed to duel for Voldemort if it came to that.

She opened her mouth to apologize, but the apology dried up in her throat. She was so tired of apologizing.

With his eyes still on hers, Harry spoke to her clearly and deliberately, "I'm attacking him, not you. If something hits you accidentally, it wasn't meant for you."

"The hell you say…" Ron began, but Dumbledore put a papery hand on his shoulder. His own aged face was stony, the immense power he held undeniable (_not as much as Voldemort_, Hermione noted), but his expression as he looked at her was not unkind or accusing. Hermione thought he was resigned to her position in this war. And although she could still damn him if she could, she appreciated that he, like Harry, could understand unpleasant realities.

In all of this, Voldemort said nothing, no snide remarks, no pointed and cutting insult or statement about Hermione's place by his side. He was still muttering his spell as he glared at Harry. When he finally finished, he lowered his wand to point at the young man. He did not seem angry or tense – the flow of his arm and the delicacy of his fingers around his wand were as if they had arranged a civilized meeting. Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. Voldemort was entirely too relaxed. After having been thoroughly attacked so early in the previous battle, for him to not be on his guard now was disquieting.

He stepped closer to Hermione, until his chest was near her shoulder. "Hermione, your left arm if you please." She held it out, and he pulled the fitted sleeve up over her Dark Mark. Ron's face somehow twisted more, and Harry winced.

"You don't have to flaunt her like that," Harry said through clenched teeth. His hand gripped his wand as if he thought it was Voldemort's neck. "We know about the Mark, and most of us have accepted her with it."

_Just attack him, Harry. Don't pale just because I'm standing in the way_, Hermione thought.

"Once again, Harry, thinking it's all about you," Voldemort replied. "Why would I wish my Medicus ill, to use her so callously against you? I merely wish to protect her."

"She's standing in front of you to protect _you_, you arse. What are you protecting her from?" Harry snapped.

They had been distracted by each other and all the commotion around them that they had barely noticed that the orange glow of the risen sun was eclipsed by clouds rolling in from the east. And rolling was the only word to describe it, because they were coming in at an unnatural speed, dark grayish green on the underbellies. The clouds were already half over the army when thunder cracked like a giant tree splitting in half over them. In the next few seconds, the shadow had crossed over the battlefield. When Harry whipped around to look at the source of the thunder, Voldemort pressed his wand against her Dark Mark. It heated but did not burn.

"_Protego mortvoranos tempestas_," he hissed, almost in her ear. She thought he lingered there, but she quickly dismissed it.

Harry had turned back and shot his first spell at the Dark Lord when the rains came. It was the altered Sectumsempra spell, and Voldemort was still straightening from where he had charmed her brand. Had he been alone, it might have worked to penetrate the shield charm and hit Voldemort with the same devastating force as the last time. But Harry could not have known that Hermione would know how to counter it, after devoting hours to intuitive healing of its effects. Harry's curse had spilled from his lips with the speed and ease of someone who had used it before, and often. Hermione could not catch the exact words of the spell, but even if she could not remember the exact words of the countercharm, she let her intuitive magic take hold of her again. It was still fresh enough in her mind that it was only a split second before she cast the seven-word countercurse that deflected the spell back to Harry. It had been close – the spell had penetrated the shield, although it still stood strong.

Startled as he was that the spell had been blocked, Harry was not as quick to realize it was returning to its origin. But Dumbledore jerked him out of the way of the glowing green light (just a shade or two greener than the Killing Curse) just in time so that it could hit another poor soul – Death Eater or Dumbledore's soldier, neither Dumbledore nor Harry knew. Neither of them cared.

Because the rain was eating through their skin. Only Dumbledore's Army. Dumbledore's head jerked up to stare back at Voldemort and Hermione, who seemed unaffected. If Dumbledore could have spared the attention, he would have also seen that the rain was just water to Voldemort's followers as well.

Dumbledore's Army screamed in pain, and those who kept their heads tried shielding spells, the Umbrella Charm, and the Impervius Charm. The latter was the first charm that Ron tried, and Dumbledore threw up shielding spell after shielding spell. While all of these charms worked for a time, they didn't work nearly long enough. The rain dissolved them as easily as they did skin. Through the chaotic beat of rain and roll of thunder, Hermione could also hear the chemical hiss of flesh and grass and clothing burning through. So focused was the other side on maintaining cover from the rain that they could not concentrate on protecting themselves from Voldemort's followers. And Harry could not protect himself from Voldemort, who stepped out from the dissolving shield charm around him and Hermione and hit Dumbledore with Cruciatus. Dumbledore was unable to stop fortifying the shield over Harry to shield himself, and he flew back, jerking and groaning to keep from screaming. The acid rain seared through his robes and into his flesh, and that's when he did began to scream, his crackled voice joining the cacophony of pain around them.

When the rain began to dissolve the shields faster than Harry could recast them, and when he saw how badly his side was doing under the tempestuous onslaught, he shot a shower of red sparks into the sky. In the hazy shadow of the storm, they were easy to see.

"Retreat!" he bellowed, grabbing Ron and yanking them both through the torrential rain to grab Dumbledore and Disapparate away.

Those who heard the call repeated it and Disapparated; those who couldn't were left to melt on the killing fields.

Voldemort turned to Hermione, noble and proud. He approached her and slid an arm around her shoulders. They were both wet and cold, but that was unimportant at the moment.

A wave of his wand, and the clouds above coalesced into the Dark Mark. Cheers and laughter of victory rose from the Death Eaters, Black Dogs, and Cat's Paws. A victory they needed to regain confidence in their master, who could now rest until the next battle knowing that his strategy was sound.

Leaving the storm to dispose of the dead and dissipate on its own with the absence of its originator, Voldemort Disapparated them both back to the fortress.

They appeared in Voldemort's chambers. He let her move away from him. She didn't scream at him for what he did to her friends, her side – what would be the point? And he did not hold his victory above her head. He didn't gloat about the ingeniousness of his spell, which he had appropriated from one of the Dark Arts books in his library and modified to make more lethal. She stared at him, and he stared at her, a curious thaw between them.

Then she turned her back on him and passed through his bathroom into hers. She removed her cold, sodden, heavy robes and left them in a heap on the tile. After locking the door between their quarters so that he would know for certain he was unwelcome, she sank into a hot bath and scrubbed until her skin was raw. What she was trying to rub out of herself was hard to say, but she felt she had to try.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Author's Notes: ** See, I'm doing what I promised. I'm getting the chapters out. This one is a short chapter, but the last one was very long.

**Chapter 18**

She pored through the stacks of tomes for a third time, filling up her seventh notebook with tiny, precise handwriting. Hermione felt like she was getting nowhere. Since the battle, all she could do was work, but somehow she could not throw herself into it as completely as she had when she had tried to escape Voldemort's insistent, smug presence. Although her heart conflicted over whether or not she should rejoice at her inability to find any further information about Voldemort's condition or a possible treatment or cure, it was all she could do not to start tossing books into the fire. Part of her was convinced, though, that the answer was there – that it was her incompetence as a researcher that caused the answer to elude her. And to that, the only solution was to walk the well-trodden roads again and again and again.

Hermione knew that Voldemort was working on strategy with his Death Eaters for the next battle, this one scheduled for three weeks from the last. It was a vast amount of time for each faction to regroup and consider the strengths and weakness of the opponent – at this point, they were even, with one victory and one loss. The three weeks were not meant to bolster either side, since by Dumbledore's and Voldemort's logic, they were on even footing, and the extra time would not give either side undue advantage. In the meantime, though, the two factions had not agreed on a ceasefire until the battle date, and the Death Eaters resumed their more covert attacks, using what leverage they still had in secret and attacking Muggle sites. The Ministry was working overtime to cover up the attacks and modify memories – with the opponent's resources divided between secrecy and defensive attacks, Voldemort could focus his army's energy more efficiently.

Voldemort rarely joined his Death Eaters for these guerilla maneuvers. This was not necessarily unusual for the last few years, as his ranks had increased to the point where the general no longer had to join his lieutenants. But he also could not attend those for which he actually _wanted_ to make a personal appearance. He wished for everyone outside his fortress to know that he was still a threat to them, that he had not died or weakened nor grew fat and lazy with the time away from the public eye. He also wanted everyone inside his fortress to continue seeing him active and powerful. They may have won the second battle, but that did not mean his followers forgot the first.

After the last battle, Hermione had given Voldemort strict orders to refrain from magic whenever possible, and that meant eschewing attacks outside the fortress. His sour expression was expected, but she had replied, "There is more than one way to show your power. And you have more than one kind of power. Use them." She could tell he bit back a retort as he swallowed instead the explicit compliment freely given.

Hermione shifted again in her seat, squirming against a restlessness she could not put a finger on. She could blame it on spending most of her time in the dark library, with no window to relieve her claustrophobia; or she could blame it on sitting most of the time, although she had taken to walking the corridors when her legs started aching. No longer did she work herself to the bone, no longer did she throw herself so far into her work that she could not see the aim.

Since accepting her position, truly accepting it, she forced herself to take as much care for herself as Voldemort, for she could not be the Medicus that he needed if she lost sight of her own needs, few as they were. She could also blame the restless feeling on the inner thrill that darker place inside her still had when she came into the library and touched, opened, read the books and played with their magicks. She only played with them on parchment most of the time, plying her theories with arithmancy or runes or writing out her thoughts free style. All the Dark Arts wanted from her at this stage was simply to be acknowledged, to be used, if only through quill and ink.

She dropped her quill and ran her fingers through her hair, pulling gently at the roots. Her thighs pressed together, and she rolled her ankles. Pages of the open books fluttered although there was no wind. She marked the pages and closed the books, stacking them neatly next to her ink well. Her notebook she slipped into her robes. Maybe all she needed was another walk. She'd go to the kitchens for something to eat, walk back, then try again.

As she went through the now completely familiar halls, the Death Eaters gave her wide berth – she presumed that the sight of her at Voldemort's side at the last battle had finally done for her status what cursing Lucius had not quite managed. She did not know whether Voldemort's status with them had lowered in the same measure. Given that most of the older Death Eaters had a spark of fear in their eyes when they passed by her, she guessed that their awe for him was mostly restored. After all, they had as much to fear from him if they tried to attack her surreptitiously. The Death Eaters from her generation did not seem to have that same fear, maybe because despite her blood she was still a peer to them.

"Granger," Draco said as she encountered him around a corner. He was alone, and his expression was as it had once been in a potions master's laboratory. The smirk that often shaped his features in the presence of his friends was strangely absent. Instead, he nodded his head to her, gray eyes neutral and level.

"Draco," she responded evenly. Then the moment had passed, and she was beyond him.

Thirty minutes later and her stomach was full, but she still could not shake the restlessness, if that was even what it was. She leaned against the wall outside the kitchens for a minute, rubbing her ink-stained hands over her face and massaging her temples. It was almost like something she had felt before, but it was enough of a shade off that she could not even determine the closest analog. If she had to describe it: it was like that calm, quiet pressure just before a headache.

"Need some help, Medicus?" asked Macnair, in his familiar ironic baritone, coming down the hall from her left. He wore a crimson tunic under his Death Eater outer robes, and with his thin mustache and square good looks, he looked a bit like Clark Gable in a '40s vision of Camelot. "You're looking a touch bothered. You know I can help with that."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm fine. Just tired."

"Are you sure?" he asked. She did not fool herself for a moment that the concern in his expression was sincere. The glint in his eyes was too gleeful. "I am always willing to assist a Medicus, should my particular assistance be needed in that regard."

"I have an icy fountain of water with your name on it, Macnair," she said. "Cool it or lose it."

"So antagonistic, when all I've ever done is support you and your… unique connection to the Dark Lord," Macnair murmured. "Wounds me to my jet black heart."

"I'd be more apologetic if there were anything there at all," Hermione said. She folded her arms over her chest and watched her movements draw Macnair's eyes down. She didn't unfold her arms – she would not give him that satisfaction.

"Mmm, I recognize the fire in your eyes," he said.

"I wasn't aware that was where you were looking."

His lip curved, and his dark eyes met hers. "There was a time when that fire was against the Dark Lord and all who followed him. Oh yes, I remember that fire directed at me. Now it seems to be more productively focused, even if you don't seem to know what to do with it in the meantime."

Hermione raised her eyebrows and stared straight at him. "I'm just doing my job."

"You keep telling yourself that."

"Did you need something?" Hermione snapped.

"I always need something," Macnair said in good humor.

"Hundreds of women in the Harem to choose from, why are you bothering me?" Her left hand closed around the wand at her hip, although she did not think she would have to use it. Macnair was interested, but in nothing more than looking – Hermione could tell he was not serious, just irritating.

"Hundreds of women in the Harem aren't in front of me now. What can I say? I'm an opportunist." He gave a courtly, entirely mocking bow and offered his arm. "Walk with me."

She looked at the crook of his elbow warily, but then she pushed away from the wall with her shoulders and slid her hand inside. Her right hand took hold of her wand this time, just in case.

"Returning back to our master's quarters?" Macnair asked. She nodded. "If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to take a quick detour."

"Do I want to take this detour?" Hermione asked, narrowing her eyes.

He laughed. "It is not necessary, my dear, but I thought you might be interested in a mystery brewing in the tumescent center of our fortress. Our lord has been made aware, but he says it is none of his concern. I do not think he understands the full function of the Harem. And perhaps it truly is none of his concern, but if it is, I trust that you will impart its significance to him."

For the first time, Hermione thought she had a glimpse of sobriety in Macnair's expression, but it quickly departed in favor of a leer as he added, "I doubt, though, that the troubles of whores are of any real consequence to the success of the Death Eaters. We can always find more."

Hermione bit her tongue – there was no point in arguing with someone who simply could not and would not comprehend an alternative way of seeing the captive men and women used for pleasure. He could play at charming when it was expected of him, but she knew he did not see her as anything but a body to use. It made her angry with herself, but after her previous experience with the Death Eaters, most of which was spent naked, she had learned how fruitless fighting was against those who could not hear her, no matter how loudly she screamed at them.

However, Macnair was one of the few Death Eaters who had not challenged her position as Medicus to Lord Voldemort and was trusted by Voldemort to escort her in the outside world. It would be politick to curry his continued favor. She had to admit she was curious about what he wanted to show her – that most damning of her qualities.

He led her off her well-worn path through the fortress corridors closer to the center of the building and down a few flights of stairs. It had been more than eight years now, but while she felt a moment of disorientation, her surroundings began to look familiar again. Hermione thought she might begin to tremble, but she didn't. Instead, something darker unfurled its black leaves, something like anger except that it did not want to be appeased. Her hand tightened both on her wand and Macnair's arm. Eventually, Macnair did not even have to lead her. She knew where they were going.

"Still have your excellent memory, I see," Macnair noted. "I like that in a woman." He gestured to the ornate double doors. "After you."

Hermione resisted the impulse to glare at him and instead reached for the handle to push the doors open.

It seemed that little had changed. Yes, the sheets had gone through eight years of replacing. Many of the young men and women were new and some of the ones from before were gone, having outlasted their usefulness for Voldemort's followers, who could afford to be particular. And yet for all the changes, it was still the same.

Those without a client to distract them turned their attention to the newcomers in the room. The closed off body language and hooded stare from the woman in Medicus robes signaled them not to approach her like they had when she was first introduced to the Harem, but a few did come to Macnair, regulars by their familiar affectionate gestures. Of the three women, Hermione noticed that only one was sincere – pupils dilated, lips wet, fingers trembling as they traced down the cut of his robes. The other two were blank behind their efforts, dark circles under the eyes of the palest one.

"What happened to Radha?" Hermione asked.

Macnair pulled in the one he knew actually wanted him and kissed her possessively on the top of her head, mussing her hair. He shouldered the others away. They dispersed easily and integrated back amongst the rest waiting – waiting for themselves to be used, waiting to have a reason to shut off completely, waiting for their only purpose in the fortress. By now, they all mostly knew their place. Hermione recognized their submission, their degradation, and the detachment and hollowness needed to survive it. She had shared it once, felt it still in flashes, but those flashes were but memories now instead of visions. It made her spine feel like stone knowing that part of the reason was the determined plunge back into the research that had once almost damned her to this fate.

"Oh, she's still here, I think," Macnair murmured, guiding the girl to the nearest bed, fingers digging into the flesh of her hips with painful pressure. "I don't concern myself much with her anymore."

He looked up at Hermione and laughed as he unwound the translucent gauze from the girl's body. He barely had to look, so well he knew the routine. "You know better than to think any of us has any sort of sentimentality for these girls, even if we sometimes have favorites. Surely you're not so naïve as to think…"

"I don't have to be naïve to be disgusted," Hermione said. "And I didn't come here to watch. Why did you bring me here?"

The gauze fell away from the girl's body, and she had successfully removed his outer robes. Her deft fingers worked quickly on the tunic. Hermione fought the impulse to look away. Macnair noticed, and he almost commented but for the patina of professionalism that descended upon her. He stilled the girl's hands on him. His clothes gaped open over his barrel chest, but he was unfazed as he gave Hermione his full attention.

"We may not have sentimental feelings for the women in our Harem, but we do notice when one of our things is gone," Macnair said. "For the last year or so, it was maybe an extra two or three every few months than the ones we usually dispose of. But just within this last week or so, we've lost one every night. A few of them are missed by some of the Death Eaters – they weren't ready to get rid of them. It's not that we mourn their deaths, if they are in fact dead. But it's certainly a mystery, and we've never had anyone so greedy as to take more than his fair share." His large hand slid between the girl's thighs and grasped the flesh possessively. "Perhaps it's nothing. But I thought you might want to know."

"And you've already told the Dark Lord about this?" Hermione asked. Her eyes went slightly glassy as she considered the information.

"As I said, he considered it beneath his notice," Macnair replied. "I understand his dismissal – the fates of a few toys mean nothing to him. I only wonder if his dismissal is… careless? The Harem was always his concession, not his choice." His hand swept up to knead the girl's breasts, relishing the flesh yielding under his fingers.

Hermione was momentarily captivated by the rhythmic movements, the swell of the girl's pale breasts through his rough fingers. She was even aware that Macnair was watching her watch and giving her a show because of it. He leered at her from her periphery.

"And why did you need to tell me?" Her voice sounded far away.

"I am devoted to my lord," Macnair said. "I do not want him to overlook a possible problem just because he's beyond this kind of carnal need. If it means having to tell you, well, that's just a bonus." He pinched the girl's nipple sharply, and Hermione jumped as though she had been the one pinched.

"Duly noted. I'll discuss the matter with him." Hermione forced herself to look away, her spine tight and her palms tingling. Even the roots of her hair felt on edge now. The rake of nails over her scalp helped a little.

"Care to stay?" Macnair asked. He pulled the girl onto his lap. Her blonde hair spilled over his shoulder as she kissed his neck. The playfulness of the girl's eyes as she glanced at Hermione was tinged with confusion, as though unsure about Hermione's place in the room, whether she was to be regarded as a Death Eater or a fellow captive.

"No, thank you." Hermione took a step back, and that helped her turn around and take another step away.

"Are you sure?" Macnair needled. "I could have sworn I saw…"

The slamming door was answer enough, but Hermione found that the walk back to her quarters was not. It took three turns around the Death Eater wing before she thought she could go back to the library for a few more hours.

v88888v

When she emerged from the library late that evening, Voldemort's room was dark but for the fire through which she walked. She almost expected him to be sitting in one of the armchairs. On the occasions he was in the room at all when she came out, he was almost always cradled in the wings of the chair, hunched in the shadows with his robes wrapped around him for additional warmth, his eyes distant in thought. Upon her entrance, he would return to himself and shift slightly. There were no words shared – at this point, there was no need. But lately his gaze returned to the fire instead of capturing hers in subtle, silent challenge. She did not question him about it, but as with any anomaly, she noted the change.

Standing as she was before the fire, most of the room was shrouded in darkness, and for a second she thought no one else was in the room with her. She started toward her rooms, and that was when she heard the sounds. Heavy breathing, sharp gasps, hiss of movement on fabric, something wet. For a moment, she was transported to part of the time during her captivity she tried most fiercely to forget – body weakened to the very edge of death and comfort in the form of silver hands and sweat and desperate, unwanted affection.

She smelled sex before she saw it, and even then she only saw writhing shadows. He was over her, his white skin ghostly but easier to see than hers. His hand covered her mouth as he thrust inside of her. The gasps were hers, and they were not the gasps of a woman impressing upon a man that she wanted more of him. Through his silencing hand, the girl was trying to scream. As Hermione's eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that Voldemort's other hand braced itself on the girl's throat. His back rose from under the covers, the muscles working furiously as his pace quickened.

Hermione stepped further into the darkness, treading lightly to the bathroom door. All the blood had drained from her face, yet her cheeks felt like they burned. She flinched as the bed creaked, impossibly loud in the enforced silence of the room. Voldemort made a restrained noise almost like a grunt, and his hand slipped away from the girl's mouth even as his other hand tightened momentarily around her throat.

"Please," she gasped, "please." Hermione heard the mucus in her throat and knew that if she touched the girl's cheeks, they would be slick and salty with tears. "I won't tell. Promise. Please."

Then her air was completely cut off, and all she could do was gag, her fingers clutching like impotent spiders at the sheets, at Voldemort's shoulders, at nothing, as though she could grasp the air into her lungs.

Voldemort reached for the headboard as his body found release, jerking into the girl beneath him. Hermione felt the moment of it, and she felt it because of him. Now she recognized all those other strange moments over the last days – or was it weeks – of uncoiled tension. She had thought they were nothing more than a brief period of tentative peace within herself. Her fist pressed against her stomach as though to hold in her … fear? disgust? Both and neither, she could not understand her own visceral reaction enough for words. All she knew for certain was that she needed to get out of the room. Now.

The girl's dry coughs filled the room when Voldemort released her. "Please," she croaked again. "Won't tell. Please."

Hermione reached the door and turned the doorknob when she heard the rustle of the sheets and Voldemort's emotionless voice intoned, "_Avada Kedavra_."

She froze, the cold doorknob heating beneath her palms. When she felt her next heartbeat, she cautiously twisted around to see Voldemort slide out of bed and pull on his robe in one sweeping motion, giving the impression of ghost's body disappearing and leaving only the hovering head floating in the shadows.

"_Wingardium leviosa_." The girl lifted from out of the sheets to float to the middle of the room. "_Incendio_."

Voldemort saw her over the flaming body, which lit up the parts of the room that the hearth fire did not reach. He didn't say anything as the girl burned, making the room smell sickeningly like a summer backyard party.

His eyes reflected the flickering light, and his expression was completely blank, as though he were truly made of marble and his eyes made out of glass. She could not tell whether he was surprised, embarrassed, or furious that she was there, that she had seen what he did. It would not be the death of the girl nor her immolation that would make him want to hide his actions – it was the sex. Hermione remembered his dismissal of the Death Eaters' sexual exploits, even if he encouraged their indulgence and used it against them. She remembered his complete disregard for her nudity, using it only to shame her, not to take advantage of it himself. She had never known him to be a sexual creature, nor had he indicated any sort of interest in it to her – as a pet slave or as his Medicus. His Death Eaters believed him to be asexual, even scornful of sexual needs, and until now, Hermione would have been inclined to agree.

The light between them grew dimmer as the fire completely consumed the girl's body into ash that drifted lazily to the floor, even reducing the bones to the fine powder.

In the resultant darkness, Voldemort waved his wand. "_Evanesco_." The mess disappeared, leaving no trace that the girl had ever been there.

He wouldn't kill her – he couldn't even hurt her. Yet she stood there, half turned toward him and unable to move a muscle or look away, barely able to breathe or blink. She did not even know what it was exactly that she feared.

"I think it goes without saying," Voldemort said, filling the silence, "that you are not to tell anyone what you just saw. Not a single solitary soul." Pulling his robes more firmly around him, he came toward her slowly, so slowly.

Hermione swallowed and her dry throat clicked. "You didn't have to kill her," she said.

"If it is irrelevant to my health, you have no place to tell me what I need or need not do," Voldemort replied.

"You strike enough fear into the hearts of your followers and their 'pets.' If you commanded that they keep silent, they would. Or you could have Obliviated her."

"Of course I had to kill her," Voldemort said through clenched teeth. "Under the right situation, even those scared into silence will speak, and the strongest Memory Charms can be tampered with. There is no other recourse to eliminating all evidence." He paused – his eyes looked away for a fraction of a second. "You weren't supposed to see that."

He slid a cold hand over hers and removed her hand from the door knob. His other hand kept hold of his wand. She was strongly reminded of the weeks when Voldemort was powerless to hurt her, back when she had the Snake-Charming spell on him. Now, as then, the way he held his wand was one of the most frightening empty threats she had ever seen. She doubted many wizards could manage the same subtle menace as Voldemort when he had no cards to play against her.

"There are hundreds of rooms in this fortress." Her voice seemed distant as her eyes moved from his wand to his red eyes. As close as he was, she could discern the deep color from what little light was in the room, even though his pupils were completely dilated in the dark. "You could have used any one of them, knowing that I was in the library and not knowing when I'd leave."

"Are you suggesting that I _wanted_ you to see?" Voldemort asked. The words were like velvet, and she felt his fingers tense as though wanting to tighten around her hand. He let her go to avoid that temptation.

"I'm suggesting there were alternatives."

"There is no guarantee of privacy in any rooms but mine and yours – I've put enough wards on them to keep out a house fly. I tried to finish before you came out. You had never come out before when I…" He stopped. His teeth clenched, making his temples twitch with the force of it. With a wave of his wand, the lamps illuminated, and they could see each other plainly.

"I do not have to justify myself to you, Hermione. I killed her, I killed the ones before, and I will kill the ones after. I do this for my own protection, which you as my Medicus should understand. And you will not speak of it, for my own protection."

The light seemed to loosen her muscles, and she felt like she could move again, like she could turn around completely and face him. "Of course I won't tell anyone about this. I don't tell anyone about anything that I do here; I've kept all of your secrets. But that's not the point."

The tip of his wand dented her cheek. "You may think that you're still on the moral high ground, but I know you saw more than the final act of my little encounter. I don't recall you speaking out and telling me I must change my wicked ways when I was fucking the girl. Nor do I remember your dulcet tones when I killed her. Only when I knew that you saw what I had done."

Hermione's mouth abruptly closed. She could not protest because anything that spilled out of her mouth now would be a bitter lie. Voldemort was always wickedly adept at using the truth over a lie. And she wasn't mortified – wasn't mortified that she had failed to stop him from killing the girl when just a few months ago she would have at least tried to stop him; wasn't mortified that he accused her protests of being perfunctory. She wasn't mortified that she wasn't mortified. Instead, she was just a little sad. She lowered her eyes, and Voldemort's wand drifted down to her neck, her collarbone, before leaving her completely.

"Now," Voldemort said evenly, "unless you are prepared to take their place, you have no right to tell me what to do with them. Get out." He turned his back on her and wrapped his arms around his chest as he headed for the fire.

Hermione stood there for a moment, mind whirring madly. "Lord Voldemort," she began, "why…?"

"Get. Out."

He did not have to raise his voice for her to know that now was not the time. She opened the door and made a speedy exit, chest tight with the heady, dizzying mix of confusion and revelation.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Author's Note:** Once again, a thorough thank you to my beta, Bean, for all the help she gives me.

**Chapter 19**

Hermione gave him two days. Two days for him to come to her to explain the events of that night. She spent that time taking notes and double- and triple-checking previous entries in her journals, staying out of his way. This was not the first time he had withheld information from her, from his own Medicus. He had to learn that he was not to withhold anything from her. Even the smallest detail, the slightest anomaly or change, could be vital information about his condition. And this was no slight anomaly.

She gave him two days. When he did not come to her, Hermione went to him.

Hermione strode through the connected bathrooms and into his room. Voldemort was speaking to Draco and Blaise. Lucius stood to the side, nodding, and Wormtail was behind Draco. When they looked around at her entrance, Wormtail immediately looked to the floor again, eyes darting up now and then to peer at her in snatches. Hermione paid him little mind, no more than she paid the angry expression Lucius cast at her.

"I need to speak with the Dark Lord," Hermione said. Her expression betrayed no emotion, but her eyes locked with Voldemort's. "Leave."

Draco, Blaise, and Wormtail each started toward the door, but Lucius grabbed Draco's shoulder.

"You cannot just waltz in here, Mu-Miss Granger, and expect us to simply obey…" Lucius began.

Voldemort interrupted him without breaking eye contact with Hermione. "Leave. Medicus Granger and I have some business to attend to."

Lucius opened his mouth, then closed it. After the example both Voldemort and Hermione made of him, Lucius could not challenge Hermione's position again, nor could he undermine the Dark Lord's well-reestablished authority. Clenching his teeth and glaring at Hermione, he followed his son and the others out the door. Hermione wished that Carmen had been among their number, so that she could sense someone's quiet support. But all she had was herself.

When the door closed behind the Death Eaters, Voldemort locked it, not even having to look as he waved his wand. Once again, they stood on opposite sides of the room, almost like they had been when the girl burned between them.

Finally, Hermione broke the silence. "How many times do I have to tell you? You have to tell me when something is different. I can't always sense it myself, or sometimes when I do, I don't know what it means."

"It was irrelevant," Voldemort replied.

"Irrelevant?" Hermione gave an incredulous laugh. "I think I'm the one to decide if something is irrelevant to your case, and how can you possibly think that this is irrelevant? This is so far from normal for you that you have to murder the women you use. You kept it from me out of shame, and when was the last time you felt shame about anything?"

"I do not wish to discuss this now." He put his hands behind his back, squaring himself toward her in an uncharacteristically defensive stance.

"You don't get to decide what to discuss," Hermione said, stepping forward. "I am your Medicus. I need to know these things. The fact that you needed a Medicus must have been embarrassing enough, but you hired me anyway. Then you let me see the damage done. I've seen your mind and you've bared your soul. I don't understand how there is anything left to hide from me, Voldemort."

Voldemort did not move, even as she came closer. His hollow cheeks twitched as he clenched his teeth. "I am entitled to my privacy."

Hermione's hand waved through the air, brushing away his excuse. "Privacy from everyone else, yes. And you know I try to give you what privacy you can afford. But you cannot afford this kind of privacy. I needed to know this. You should have told me."

"I didn't want to tell you," Voldemort said. She was close enough that now he looked down at her.

"I don't care. You needed to tell me. If you didn't feel comfortable telling me directly, you should have told Carmen and told him to tell me."

Voldemort curled his lip into a sneer, but not directed at her. "I would tell Harry Potter before I would let Carmen gloat about this."

Hermione considered Carmen's obsession with Voldemort's lack of a love life and forced herself not to smile, even for the briefest of seconds. What was between her and Voldemort now was too important for that kind of distraction. "Then you should have just told me," she said. "That's what I'm here for; that's what a Medicus is. Whatever our history, we are connected now. Why didn't you—?"

"I don't want to tell you," Voldemort's eyes narrowed until they were red slits. He shifted on his feet, as though he wanted to walk away, but he forced himself to stay where he stood. He would not flee.

Hermione considered him – she did not think he was this uncomfortable even after those times she went inside him for her magical diagnostic tests. Moving closer, perhaps a little too close, she observed the quickening pulse on his temples, the still-heavy drape of his robes over his skeletally thin body, the tightness of the muscles of his neck and shoulders.

"Voldemort," she said quietly, "I think I know what is happening to you, and I might have known that much sooner if you had just bloody told me, about this and other things. I am of no use to you if you cannot swallow your damn pride and let me help you. I know it's easier to do that when I'm the one being violated and doing what you want me to do. But I cannot do everything for you on my own if you are not willing to help."

It was a moment. A single moment of unguarded expression that she never expected to see from him: desperation. It pulled at somewhere in her chest, not her heart, but perhaps in the place where her own soul-center rested. In that moment, she felt his desperation as much as she saw it.

It occurred to her that when she first came to him as a Medicus, she would have at the very least regarded it as a personal triumph. How often had he seen her at her lowest moments? How often had he seen her lost and broken? And how often had he exploited every opportunity to mold her into the image he wanted to make of her? Even as his Medicus.

It was only a moment, but it meant so much more than that. It did not matter that Voldemort did not mean to give it to her.

"Why don't you tell me what you think is happening to you," Hermione said, "and then I'll tell you what my research suggests."

His eyes were still slits as they considered her, guarded once again. Finally, he replied, "I do not know. I suspect they are connected to transfiguration spells that I cast upon myself, but I could not tell you which ones, or why they have this result. Why this particular symptom? Why this time?"

He moved to the fireplace and sat down in his chair. Hermione followed him and leaned on the arm of the other, allowing him to gather his thoughts in the heated glow of the fire. He crossed his arms, bringing his robes more closely about him.

"I will confess: I went through all of my old notes and texts before I hired a Medicus, but I hired one to find what I missed. Once you were bound to me, I resumed my original attentions to this war and left the problem for you." He looked up at her. "I am unable to explain the strange directions my malady takes me; you would know it better."

"Very well. Would you like for me to go into the specifics, or would you simply like a basic diagnosis?" Hermione asked.

"We can address specifics in applying a treatment ... or cure," Voldemort replied. "Just tell me what this is and how to end it."

She could feel his gaze on her even as she looked away.

"I think I know what it is, but I'm not sure that it can be stopped at this juncture. I will say that whatever uncharacteristic sexual desire you have been feeling, it will go away on its own in a few weeks or so," Hermione explained. "At least I think it will, if my hypothesis is correct. However, it should return in about a year."

"Stop equivocating. I am in no mood to let you ramble on as you do before you get to the point," Voldemort snapped.

Hermione swept a few wisps of hair behind her ears. "Okay. Your problem's origins, as you suspect, come from some of your initial transfiguration experiments, particularly the serpent rituals that helped determine your Animagus form. That, more specifically, is what's surfacing. In part because of the magical decay and the near separation of your magical and physical body, what's left of your magic is drawing upon your physical body." She stood up and began pacing the room, in part out of nervousness and in part out of restlessness after being cooped up in her room for most of the last two days.

"Unfortunately," she continued, "because the transfiguration spells went beyond simple Animagism, your magical form is drawing upon both your physical human body and your physical snake body that you created, which is as much part of yourself as the human. You've always had some elements of your Animagus manifest in your human self, the way that other Animagi do, in your appearance and behavior. The decay is causing your magical body to separate from you and causing your physical bodies to merge in order to compensate.

"To put it plainly, Voldemort, you're always cold because you're increasingly cold-blooded, and you find yourself wanting sex when you never have before because the king cobra wants to breed." She stood still then, looking at the floor in silence; she could feel his eyes on her.

Voldemort's voice was as cold as his blood, and it made Hermione's skin break out in goosebumps. "Are you serious? Please, Hermione, tell me that this is an elaborate prank that you concocted with Carmen, because maybe then I might understand this … this ludicrous explanation. If you tell me now, I may spare him half the punishment I have planned. Has he or anyone else been putting a potion in my food? Some kind of…"

Hermione felt the chill of his regard, but she stood her ground. "With all _due_ respect, you would probably notice if someone put something in your food. I see you check every time you're served, and sometimes you have the house elves taste it first. Besides, you know that Carmen would never do anything like this; the man is completely loyal to you. And I would never participate in any such prank. You know better than that."

Voldemort stood, and silhouetted by the fire he was a skeletal shadow, almost alien. He stepped into the light cast from the window, but that did not make him look any less threatening. "You were the one who wanted to remove the immortality spells – you threatened my life by removing them, and in doing so, you increased the speed of the decay and caused this, whatever it is. You are the one responsible."

"I already told you," Hermione snapped, "the removal of the immortality spells sped up the decay that you started by changing yourself in so many unnatural ways that you're rejecting your magic. Like people who develop an allergy to something they are overexposed to."

She began pacing again. Perhaps it was best not to present her back to him, like turning her back on a predator, but she was keyed up, anxious, frustrated. "You charged me to cure a disease no one else has had, something that you couldn't cure yourself. Your new symptoms offer me clues as to what your malady is, but for Merlin's sake, Voldemort, your bruised pride at your libido is hardly top priority for me, especially since it will go away soon. King cobras breed in January. So you have about a week or two more to suffer through it, and then we have another year to figure out how to fix this."

"I am _not_ in heat!" Voldemort shouted, grabbing her shoulder and whirling her around to face him.

"There's nothing wrong with that!" she shouted back.

"You do not understand," Voldemort said. His voice had softened now, but not him. His fingers dug so hard into her shoulders that she winced, and he released her reluctantly. "I've tried the potions and spells I used as a student to quell the desire. I know," he interjected before she could challenge his use of magic, "no unnecessary magic, but for me this was necessary. You simply do not understand. You cannot possibly understand."

"Why don't you actually tell me this time instead of leaving me to guess too late?" Hermione said. "I've more than proven my worth as a Medicus to you; coursework and tests are over. Explain to me what I don't understand."

What little color Voldemort had seemed to drain from his face. Hermione could see the internal battle in his eyes, which was remarkable enough, but she was no Legilimens. She could only guess what he was thinking. _People would kill to see this_, she thought. Voldemort, completely at his wit's end. Hermione found the realization to be more bitter than sweet.

Voldemort stepped back, but he would not look away, would not walk away. Hermione had the luxury of turning her back, but even in the midst of this humiliation, Voldemort had no such luxury.

"You already know some of my views on the matter of sexual desire from reading my journals. In terms of my own, when I was still fully human, my adolescence began late. My peers might have mocked me for it as well as my Muggle upbringing, but by my second year everyone already knew not to cross me. It was third year before I started to physically change. I shot up a foot in almost a year, endured the cracking of my voice as it started to deepen, and then experienced the first stirrings of pubescent desire." Voldemort practically spat the words.

"Observance of my housemates taught me that my physical responses were normal, but I could not stand them. I was neither ashamed nor repressed. My hatred of sexual desire was and is purely practical, which lust never is. I watched my housemates lose all capacity for reason when confronted by anything with a skirt … and sometimes other things, I suppose, but the point was that their minds were lost whenever their blood rushed elsewhere. And I, I had nothing other than my mind to keep me in control in that House – and as I grew older, of that House."

"You know that I tolerate the Harem because it helps to keep my followers loyal, relaxed, and focused," Voldemort explained, folding his arms. "But it also makes them weak. The Cat's Paws were recruited to exploit this weakness in the other side, but I also exploit it among my followers. I control Macnair because I provide him women. I control Carmen because I could restore his desire. I controlled Wormtail with you. I control Lucius by holding Narcissa and his son over his head. I control Bellatrix by using her desire for me. I controlled Rodolphus by giving him Bellatrix. I control Nott and Avery by providing them an outlet for their desires that society will never provide them. And none of them can control me by holding the object of my desire hostage, as I did to the Order with you. No woman can control me by showing a little skin and smile. I have no sexual ties, and therefore I have fewer weaknesses from which my enemies can draw."

"I would say that was a bit extreme, if it were anyone else," Hermione murmured. Her fingers tapped her wand, as it would be impolite to start pacing again when he continued to hold her gaze, as though pinning her to the floor.

"I am careful," Voldemort said.

Hermione shook her head. "Only in that regard, in that you think your desire makes you weak. If you were truly careful, my services would not be needed." She held up a hand before he could protest. "I know _why_ you took those risks. My point is that you took them, which is the opposite of careful."

"That which you desire has power over you," he said. She did not flinch as he surged forward, but all he did was circle around her. "You desired freedom when you were mine; I was the arbiter of your freedom, and I had power over you because of it, among other things. It is not simply lust that can be used. But it is one of the few desires that can be so easily twisted to control the weaker vessel, as effective and sometimes more so than holding a loaf of bread before a starving man. A loaf of bread does not care whether you want it or not. A woman to a man who desires her, on the other hand…

"Every one of those women that I killed so that they couldn't tell what I had done … every one of them, those nothings, had power. Over _me_." His robes brushed her feet as he whirled around her again, becoming more and more agitated. Her fingers drummed more forcefully against her wand, but still she stood her ground.

"I don't care about their deaths," Voldemort said. "You know that. But I do care about the reason their deaths were necessary. This needs to _end_, Hermione. I cannot stand another day of it."

"That which you desire has power over you," Hermione repeated softly. "It is not just your newfound lust that has power over you now. Do you not even realize that your desire for power and immortality is what has had power over you all these years, driven you to hurt yourself so terribly that I would be scrambling to find you a cure before the damage is irreparable?"

"_Yes_, I understand you have power over me!" he shouted at her. He was too close now, his breath not quite cool as it brushed her lips with the force of his exhalation. She could not help but flinch this time. "I am aware of it with each day's passing, as I am aware of my own magical power growing within me and destroying me from the inside out. Oh, I still have power over you, and you are well aware of that, but you… you…"

"That wasn't quite where I was going with that," Hermione said.

Baring his teeth, he flexed out those long, thin fingers to clench them around her neck but forced himself to stop. His hands literally trembled with the effort to keep from throttling her.

"Voldemort," Hermione warned sharply. She gripped her wand just in case this atypical level of frustration made him snap and almost do something he would regret.

He grabbed her shoulders and shoved himself away in disgust. "This is _why_ I need a clearer head, not so easily distracted by errant blood flow in inconvenient places. This is why I magically removed all desire as soon as I could. I cannot make these mistakes! I cannot lose focus!"

"What I was trying to say was that sex may not have been your primary desire over these many years; it may not have been your weakness," Hermione explained. She loosened her grip on her wand and started tapping again. She barely noticed, so intent was she on Voldemort. He rubbed his temples, and there was a touch of color back in his pale skin, high on his cheekbones. "But your desire to achieve the greatest power led you to rising so high that you would only have farther to fall. You have your power now, but at what price?"

"I do not need a moral at the end of this story," Voldemort said, narrowing his eyes at her.

Hermione sighed at his objection. "I've told you before that if you were an idiot, you were at least a spectacular idiot, but again, that's not where I was going with this. The point is that you condemn sexual desire as a weakness but fail to see how your desire for power was yet another weakness, and perhaps one with as many consequences, if not more. If none of your usual spells and potions are successful at cooling your desire … well, there are worse things to be subject to. And you are only subject to it for about a month, which is more than could be said for many other of your followers."

"So that is your brilliant and inspired piece of Medicus advice?" Voldemort snapped. "It could be worse?"

Hermione held up her hands in an emphatic shrug. "What do you want me to do, Voldemort? Numbing Charm? It won't stop your urges – after all, castrated animals still attempt to breed. Do you want me to remove the entire area? You might find that biologically inconvenient, and while it can be done, I don't think it's the best solution. Especially since it is _temporary_. For Merlin's sake, Voldemort, just a week or two and it'll be over. Are you honestly telling me that you can't wait?"

"I have a battle to plan, a battle in less than a week," Voldemort replied evenly. He seemed to have regained his composure, although the tic in his cheek remained. "I already failed at the first, and there is no guarantee that I can get through another like the last one, even with you at my side, if I cannot bloody concentrate on the task at hand. I cannot afford it."

Hermione was tempted to tell him that Harry and Ron managed to hold their own against him in their horniest years, but she thought it might not be conducive to the discussion. "Everyone else on that battlefield will have the desires that you've denied yourself, and I suspect they will all be able to … perform in spite of their distractions."

"Then I need to be better than them."

Now Hermione felt like she needed to rub her temples. The man was giving her the start of a monster headache.

"Well," she said, "you haven't taken up my suggestion to emasculate you, so there's really nothing I can do on such short notice except wait for it to go away on its own. It's a symptom of a larger problem, and as I said, it's not the most important symptom at the moment. You managed to live with it for the last two days without killing another girl – I was paying attention this time. Surely you can make another four."

She did not like the way that Voldemort was staring at her now, an intense cold burn in his eyes, his body as still as a snake before the strike. As he came forward, it was as though he glided across the floor, his heavy robes hissing on the rug.

"_Just_ another four days," he murmured. "Do you know how hard it has been to maintain my composure over the last two days? How difficult it was to hide what I need, to fight what I need?"

Hermione looked from Voldemort to her fingers tap-tap-tapping her on wand again. The urge to pace, the restlessness. It was not as bad as it was two days ago, and her sympathetic symptoms were so innocuous in comparison to some of the others, it had not been immediately apparent that it was a symptom at all. "Wait, are you…? Right now?"

He showed no signs of stopping, and she stepped backward as he came toward her, deliberate and steady. It felt almost like a dance. Hermione felt the tension of confusion and the sympathetic reaction tighten down her spine. Her legs stiffened until she was almost stumbling.

"You're supposed to be able to sense when something is wrong. How I feel? Can you even begin to know what it is like to need any warm body that crosses my path, particularly women?"

Hermione stopped abruptly when she hit the wall. She was scared again … but not all of that fear was of him. The nearer he came, the more she sensed _him_, sensed the roiling, writhing, tumbling emotions he kept just beneath the surface.

At first thought, it seemed strange to her that those frantic emotions would feel stronger with his proximity although the pain he felt in the first battle had been stronger with distance. On second thought, she understood why the Medicus connection reacted this way. She shuddered, and it did nothing for the way her skin crawled with electricity.

"I was a teenage boy once, Hermione," Voldemort murmured. He was close enough that his breath was warm on her cheek. "I know the difference between simple lust and need – this is so much worse than when I was young. Until I found the spells that temporarily quelled the lust, I did learn how to use it to my advantage when I could. Even when I eliminated it completely, I could charm those who I chose. I learned what I needed to learn without making myself vulnerable to them. Distraction was that youthful lust; it could be controlled, even if it was better not to bother with it at all. But this… this I cannot control… long enough to…"

His breath was scorching now, so close was he to her skin, and it swept over her cheek in quick, trembling, harsh pants with the vain effort to hold himself back. But he simply could not, and his thin lips brushed her jaw before pressing against her neck. His kiss was surprisingly soft but thorough, up the cord of her neck to her ear, his chin pressing rhythmically against her as though milking the taste of her. Those long fingers, as cold as his mouth was hot, slid into her hair to cradle and angle her head so that he could bite lightly, sucking where her pulse quickened. His other hand curved around her waist to pull her to him even as he pushed her more firmly against the wall. Voldemort's robes were heavy enough that she could not feel anything but the subtle warmth of him, but Hermione could imagine what was underneath.

It should have been awful. She should have pushed him away, her stomach heaving and her skin feeling like it had been coated with slime. She should have remembered all the terrible words that came from that mouth, the terrible deeds that came from his hands. And it was not as though she forgot … more that they were suddenly distant, not as important as the man before her, just the man himself.

Instead, Hermione's shoulders lifted with the rush of sharp, strange arousal that rose from her belly and down her arms to tingle in her fingertips. Her hands grasped, found the angled jut of his shoulder blades. Her dry lips parted as she let him bare her neck to him. She felt a profound, long-denied hunger, as though she were the one who had repressed that longing for decades instead of Voldemort. It stirred, stretched, strengthened. The other vice Voldemort had nurtured, the Dark magic within her, twined with this new desire like they were old lovers.

Hermione experienced a brief series of memory flashes as Voldemort's tongue found a sensitive spot under her chin. She remembered her nights with Lucius – most of them had been the degrading exercise they were meant to be. Yet, on very few occasions, there had been a stab of heady satisfaction when the silver-haired master closed his eyes and threw back his head, lost in his need. She remembered Voldemort standing before her after she awoke from her Nightmare, and realizing that he was as under the Snake-Charming Spell as his Animagus. So much power in him, and he could do nothing himself without her releasing him. But a lingering image surfaced as Voldemort groaned, as though in pain, and she could feel the vibrations all the way down her melting spine: her body willingly used by Wormtail, tears pouring down her face in the bath, his fingers gentle on her cheek as he rested her head against his knee, cold and cruel and manipulative and tender comfort.

She did not want him – she did not want to want him. Yet her hands curled to cup those shoulder blades and hold him. A gasp, almost inaudible, slipped from her lips, a "no" that was an utter lie. His kiss, his touch … it _was_ awful because it wasn't.

He pulled away, hissing through his teeth in what sounded to Hermione like a string of Parseltongue curses. Voldemort staggered one step back, then another. It was as though it took every ounce of effort to retreat.

She had never seen him like this – when he had taken the girl two nights ago, it had been dark, and she could only see the frantic movements. She had not seen his expression, not the high spots of color on his normally gravestone white face, not the prominent dilation of his pupils, nor his hunched posture as he fought with his own body for control.

He pressed a hand against his chest, physically holding himself back.

"The longest I have managed to resist was three days, but by the third day, I cannot think of anything else." He glared to the right of her, deliberately not looking at her. But not out of shame, Hermione thought. "Do you see? I cannot endure it another day, not without making a complete fool of myself. And you know I will not abide being a fool. I need… I will have another girl tonight if you will not help me. For Merlin's sake, you are my Medicus, and all you have done thus far is make things worse!"

Hermione swallowed; her throat caught on its own dryness. She wanted to touch the places where his saliva dried cold on her skin, where she was flushed red from the way he drew her blood to the surface. But she forced herself to straighten. She schooled her expression and hoped he had been so lost in his own desire that he had not noticed her unwelcome reaction.

"Forgive me if I ask the obvious, but have you tried satisfying yourself on your own?" Hermione asked.

"Satisfaction is not what I need, otherwise self-stimulation would be sufficient," Voldemort replied. "What more do I need to do for you to understand? Attempt to bypass the protection the Medicus spells offer you?"

"I know you're frustrated—"

"You know _nothing_," Voldemort spat.

"—but I would like for you to hold out as long as you can so I can see if I can find an alternative for you."

"This evening," Voldemort said. "I will give you until this evening to find something. I will give you a list of charms and potions that I used in the past, and the charm that removed my libido entirely. If you do not find an answer by this evening, I will not hold myself back and possibly jeopardize my position just to indulge your personal scruples."

"But—" Hermione protested, stepping forward.

"Hermione," Voldemort said softly. He looked straight into her eyes, and she did not have to be a Legilimens to see the intense heat within them, battling with the uncharacteristic self-loathing in his expression. "Leave this room. Now. And do not return unless you have a cure or a whore."

Hermione did not waste time edging along the wall to the bathroom door. She simply Disapparated. When she reappeared in her room, she immediately sat down at her desk and took out her journal. At the top of a new page, she wrote:

_V insists that his desire is entirely unwanted and uncontrollable. None of the spells that he used in his youth appear to quell that desire. The only conclusion is that the symptom is not simply physical. If this is the king cobra's mating season, and if the king cobra imbues V with that same inner knowledge, it is possible that the symptom is purely instinctual in nature_.

She set her quill down. If the symptom was a matter of deep-seated instinct, refusing it would be as fruitless as refusing the instinct to eat, drink, eliminate, and sleep. There were spells and potions to temporarily remove the urgency of those instincts, just as there were disciplines that challenged them. But in the end, the body needed what the body needed, and there was simply no time to teach Voldemort ascetic self-denial. If none of the spells and potions Voldemort used in the past eliminated his physical desire, Hermione was not sure there was anything to be done. In fact, most healing spells for instinctual needs centered around increasing their potency rather than dulling them.

A flying parchment squeezed under the bathroom door and fluttered over to her. She looked over the list that Voldemort made for her, nodding her head. It was comprehensive, all of the things that she would have suggested to him, plus a few that she did not know about. Everything from the standard Deflating Hex to the Eunuch Charm (also called the Eunuch Curse, depending on whether or not the recipient of the spell was willing).

If she had not found anything in the last two days that was different than this list, Hermione was not going to find anything to help him by that evening. The memory of the dead girl's glassy eyes and the smell of her cooking body surfaced, and Hermione slowly buried her head in her hands.

She was frustrated, but more than anything, she was simply tired. Voldemort was partially right – he had hired her to help him, and it seemed like his disease resisted all efforts to cure it by only getting worse for every step she took. He might have lived indefinitely, maybe with just mild discomfort, if she had not dismantled his immortality spells. Instead, that action had triggered a domino effect. In her mind, she knew that the real mistakes were Voldemort's. She knew that sometimes all the magic in the world could not cure some diseases, and Voldemort's disease was unprecedented. And now that she really _wanted_ to help him, she was helpless to do so.

In the midst of her helplessness, and in the darkness afforded to her, her thoughts turned instead toward his kiss. She felt the same self-loathing she had seen on Voldemort's face swell within her, but infused with it was a different kind of swell. Quiet and still, she was cognizant of the Medicus mark on her back and the Dark Mark on her forearm. The Dark Mark had vibrated softly and steadily for over a month, so that she barely noticed it anymore. The dark blue Medicus tattoo, the six small circles connected by seven lines drawn on the expanse of her back at the moment of her binding to Voldemort, did not give her similar physical sensation. But she was keenly aware of it just the same, aware of her Medicus robes rubbing against it as she shifted.

For eight years, she had thrown herself into her work, content to depend on her own mind for companionship. The Medicus Order allowed her to socialize with people who didn't think she was a spy for Voldemort. She had maintained a few friendships from her old life. And of course, she had her Medicus clients. But she forged few intimate relationships and no sexual relationships at all. She barely even acknowledged that part of her, and unlike Voldemort, she _had _studied ascetic disciplines of controlling desires for the few occasions on which she needed it. Prior to Voldemort kidnapping her, her tame relationship with Viktor Krum and her crush on Ron was the extent of that desire. Even then, getting good grades and helping Harry were far more important than frivolous things like boyfriends.

Her experience with the Death Eaters, however, had been an exercise in sexual degradation. Not just degradation, but confusion as well. Captive though she may have been, there had been moments … moments when she took control from Wormtail, moments when Lucius praised her like a dog, moments when Voldemort seemed to indicate his approval, even seemed to be grooming her to some higher end. As Voldemort said, sex was vulnerability, but it was also power, and while Lucius and Wormtail undoubtedly had power over her during most of her time with them, there had been the rare, twisted occasion when that scale tipped in her favor.

At that time, Voldemort had never used her for himself, only used her to control others. But that was not to say that they had been dispassionate toward each other. Hermione may have been beneath him, but she had never been beneath his notice. As he made Harry important to him by attacking him, he had made Hermione important to him by keeping her. It may have started by accident, but eventually she became his project, his pet.

The marks on her were mere formalities; she and Voldemort had been connected long before either of them had been branded onto her. Hermione had hoped to escape it after Voldemort released her, and she thought the last vestiges of her unhealthy attachment had burned with his cloak. But then fate, it seemed, possessed a sadistic and stubborn sense of humor.

Hermione turned her head so that it cradled in the crook of her elbow. Her eyes were glassy as she stared into nothing. At this point, all she could ever see was him. Her world was his. He had her more thoroughly now than he ever did when she was his captive. And yet, that possession was not entirely one-way, was it? The more hold he had over her, the more she had over him.

As she idly brushed her fingers over the places on her neck where his mouth touched her, she wondered if he kissed any of the girls he killed.

She believed that at no point during his time with her had he ever wanted her in his bed, nor had she wanted him. But the Oracle had chosen her for him. Hermione did not know, could not know, whether her reaction to his kiss was as sympathetic as her restlessness. What she did know was that it did not matter. The answer was clear. She knew what she had to do, and more importantly, she knew that she could.

v88888v

The woman whose arm was tucked into his was shaking almost too much to walk straight. His grip on her was as much to keep her walking as it was to lead her briskly to his rooms. She wore nothing but a sheer white shift – like a virgin sacrifice, although she was hardly a virgin at this point – and the material shimmered as she quivered. Some of the more familiar denizens of the Harem would flirt with him on the rare occasions he entered it, but they did so with the relieved knowledge that he would never indulge. He could sense their repulsion, their fear of him. He never assuaged their fear, and he did not care if he repulsed them more than the other followers who indulged their ugly desires on them.

In the last month, though, he would enter the Harem with a hood covering his head and a slight glamour, enough that none of them could guess his identity but for perhaps a shiver when his cold fingers wrapped around their wrists. Once he left, he cast a spell from the Harem to his rooms to divert anyone walking about – he wanted no one to see him like this – and removed his glamour. If he had to have these women, he would also taste their horror. All of them were well-trained. They did not start screaming until he took them.

He opened the doors to his dark rooms, making every effort not to throw her in and take her there on the floor. It had been too long since the last one, and his body screamed for contact and, yes, the heat of another body.

He knew what he really wanted, but he could not get it from these women – they were disposable. He could not stand to touch them longer than he had to. In the dark they would nervously take off what clothing they had, and he would remove his own, and he would enter her and fuck his way to an ending before killing her. But it was not a real ending. It was not the satisfaction that he needed, that he _craved_ as thoroughly as he hungered for food if he starved himself. It was as though all the years of perfect self-denial suddenly flooded him. He despised every single ounce of raging desire, furious that it could not be sated once, twice, five times, ten times. He closed the doors behind him and fought not to vomit as he felt her hands on him. It was part of her script, those too delicate and trembling fingers pawing at his robes, the empty moans.

He struck her backhand, physical contact that was more satisfying to him than any of the perfunctory gestures she made. But many of the women of the Harem were used to pain, and she only whimpered a little bit, more out of surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice high and grating to him. "What do you want? I'll do whatever you want."

"Yes," Voldemort said. "You will. Strip. Into the bed."

"Yes, yes, my lord."

Voldemort's mouth curled in a sneer that stopped before it became a snarl. He was physically ready, had been since the previous evening. He loosened his robes as he strode toward the bed. He was prepared to do what was necessary to be able to _think_, damn it all to hell. Glad though he was to have a body after thirteen years of living second by second by sheer force of will and the occasional possession, he resented being beholden to it. It was supposed to be his, his vessel, his temple. Instead, his skin tingled as though it wanted to shed, and his erection jutted defiantly against his robes, pulling him toward the body in the bed against his will. When had Lord Voldemort become a slave?

He hated Hermione for not coming to him with a solution in these the evening hours. But even more – and he would never tell anyone, not even Hermione – he hated himself. Voldemort was not accustomed to the keen blade of his hatred piercing his own flesh. Though he blamed Hermione at the surface of his mind, underneath that he knew better. The fault was his; that was the bitter sword to swallow.

As robes separated to reveal his thin, marble white chest, red eyes bored into the pale dead woman sullying _his_ bed. Oh, she squirmed and tried to look seductive in the midst of her fear, but she was already dead to him.

"_Obliviate_." The spell was soft but powerful. Voldemort cursed his bloody lust for making him careless. His wand was in his hand too late to block the spell, but it was the woman who fell back against his pillows.

"You just wandered into the wrong bed," Hermione's strong, sure voice came from the darkness. "Go on back and go to sleep. You won't remember any of it anyway."

"Oh. Thank you," the woman said serenely, as though she had not been stuttering in the Dark Lord's bed fifteen seconds ago. She passed Voldemort's rigid body without even noticing him. His hand tightened around his wand reflexively; he hated being ignored. But he let the woman walk out of the room, with only a thick line of too bright light from the open door to announce her exit. Voldemort could not see Hermione even with that light, and it took him a few moments to adjust to the darkness again when the woman shut the door behind her. This time, Hermione locked it.

Furious, frustrated, he carefully calibrated his tone not to reveal the hope beneath it. "You lost me a body, Hermione. I assume you have a solution for me."

He still could not see her, but she sounded so close. "I do." Now he could hear more of her, the whisper of her crawling on the covers of his bed to him. The air shifted, brushed his hypersensitive skin, as she stood before him. She was only a shadow, but he did not need to see her to know her face, to know what she would look like looking up at him.

A sound escaped him – a wholly undignified, cracked cry – as her hands framed his thin face and she pressed her lips to his. The cry deepened into a low moan that was no less undignified. It purred over their skin in a rumble of vibration, and Hermione shivered. She _shivered_ into him, her hips canting forward until they brushed against the physical center of his need. But it was not the very center of it. That was flesh on flesh, her warmth on his lips, those dry hands sliding around his head to cradle the delicate base of his skull to take him more deeply.

His tongue twined with hers in a wet slide that drew another moan from him. He drank her as if she were the potion she offered to cure him. His fingers gripped and slipped over the satin of her robes – formal Medicus robes, he thought blearily; she dressed for him – but he could not find purchase. Voldemort felt the room spin and blood rushed inside him in a frantic wave and he had nothing to hold on to.

He did not notice when she pushed the heavy outer robes over her shoulders and down his arms. They caught at his elbows. He did notice when she pushed the inner set down to join them. Every cell screamed at him as he jerked back. He felt the cold more keenly, felt that strange creeping sensation as his skin marbled and tightened in gooseflesh.

"What are you doing?" The words were little more than a rasp. If he thought he could not humiliate himself more before her, he saw how there was a whole level lower.

"You've already tried all the spells, and you tried the potions," Hermione explained. She let him draw away, away from her touch. Her tone was gentle, not patronizing. In fact, the touch of breathlessness he detected in her voice vindicated him, but only a little. "I could not find an alternative on such a tight deadline, as you well know."

"You should have kept the girl here." Voldemort wrapped his arms around himself, holding himself back again. He would not do this. Would not…

"I'm afraid your own words damn you." She was closer, but thank Merlin she still did not touch him. "You told me that I could not tell you not to kill those women unless I was prepared to take their place."

"I did not mean—"

"I know you didn't mean that," Hermione said. "But wouldn't you rather it be me?"

Voldemort saw it in his mind's eye, the way Hermione yielded her neck to him, almost had the taste of her on his tongue. He felt parched, starving, as though he had never been touched but for what she offered him. "Yessss," he hissed. It escaped him before he could stop it. "No. Damn you. Damn you to the coldest reaches of hell."

He sensed her magic swirl around him, and his robes fell to the ground, pooling at his feet. He stood only in his trousers. Even his wand was in his robes. He was so cold but for the fire that seemed to ignite him from the inside out. Now it had sampled what it really wanted, not a brief, mindless exorcism of base desire but an extended sensual indulgence. Whatever caused that fire – be it the serpent within or some other aspect of his magical decay that wore down the spells to protect him from these feelings – derived no satiation from his perfunctory attempts to rut it away. At its foundation, Voldemort understood that he did not just want to breed; he wanted to mate. But Voldemort would rather tear down the fortress brick by brick and torture a thousand prisoners of war than take Hermione in his arms and feel her, feel all of her over him.

"Voldemort." The sound of his name should not make him shudder this way. He needed to hear it closer to him. His arms strained around his chest. "You say that sex always makes a person vulnerable, gives the other person power. That is why you hate so much that you've been using those women. You may kill them afterward, but they had power over you because you needed them. But you see…"

And this time she did touch him, her hand finding his shoulder and tracing its way over his sharp collarbone and up his neck. His traitorous body made him lean into that hand, his mouth brushing her fingertips.

"For most of my life you had power over me. But once I became your Medicus, that changed. You've already relinquished some of your power to me. You made me your equal. We meet with the same power over each other. In any other situation, that would leave us both vulnerable." She reached for his hand and brushed it over her Dark Mark. He heard her sharp intake of breath, as if the contact gave her a static shock.

"This mark, though…" There was an answering hiss of fabric as her magic disrobed her. She brought his hand to her back, where he could sense more than feel the mark of the Medicus Order. He had never seen it, but he knew it was there. When she released his hand, he could not release her. He marveled at the contours of her musculature and the dips and valleys of her spine. As his hand slid lower, he learned that she was completely naked before him.

"This mark says that we can never use our vulnerabilities against the other. If you take me, you do not have power over me, and I don't have power over you. If you take me, you can be free of that fear."

His tongue felt leaden and slow as he replied, "I cannot take you against your will."

She pressed against him as she stood on her toes to reach his ear. "I _can_ feel your need. Your desire is mine, Lord Voldemort."

Oh, there, that was what he wanted. He could destroy the world with a single curse in the morning, because he could not resist for another second.

His trousers slid off of him. He heard her drop her wand into her pile of clothes as he pushed her back. Her thighs struck the bed, and she tumbled back onto the sheets. He followed her down, kissing her again, and she was kissing him back. This time the undignified sounds came from her, and he found that he quite liked to hear them, like he enjoyed her tongue on his boot or the way she pointed her wand at Lucius when she Crucioed him. He held himself away from the other women, not wanting to feel them any longer than he had to. But Hermione would not lie there waiting for him to finish, and if he ordered her to stay still until he was done, she would not listen. Because she was not his servant; she was not his whore.

She was not something that could be discarded.

She was his.

Voldemort let her pull him down against her, felt her scorch him with the heat emanating from her body. He gripped her hips, her thighs, her calves, her arms, her shoulders. She was thin, a little too thin from of all the times she forgot to eat when she was obsessively researching for him. But her flesh was firm and warm, every curve and angle mapped with his hands. When he slipped his thigh between her legs, she stiffened for a moment, her breath intermittent in the dark. But then she slowly twined her legs with his in invitation. She slid a hand around his bare head to press him down to her neck where he had kissed her before, rewarding him with her cry as he bit down sharply. Her hips rose to meet his, her own teeth finding the base of his shoulder. Voldemort hissed in surprise as pleasure spiked down his spine. He licked down the cord of her neck, and her head fell back against the sheets.

He touched as much of her as he could, rubbing himself against her, moving his mouth over her and nudging her with his chin until he tasted the subtle salt of sweat. He could smell her arousal; he wondered just how much of his need she felt, and how much of it was her own. The thought that he was the one who heated her blood, that he was the one whose mouth made her gasp, that he was the one who made her legs wrap around his, made him irrationally proud. As if he had achieved something worth attaining.

She flinched as he entered her. Her fingers clenched his arms painfully, and he paused. She slowed her breathing as well as she could. Slowly, she propped herself up on her elbow to wrap an arm around his neck.

"It's been a long time," Hermione whispered. "Just give me a moment." The press of her lips to the corner of his mouth was not urgent, and Voldemort had the impression that the kiss was for her, then, not him.

He did not move, although he shook with restraint, and allowed her to kiss him. Now that he had exorcised some of his need for contact – that strange need to _rub against_ someone – Voldemort was more aware of _her_, of _Hermione_, in his bed. With him. The quiet triumph he felt now was not the old triumph, any more than this desire was like the desire of seventy years ago. As she drew his tongue into her mouth, her nails digging slightly down his back, his hips jerked. He pressed her down again.

"Move," she said. And Voldemort did as his Medicus required.

One hand hooked under her thigh and the other grasped the headboard for leverage. The wood creaked under his grip, but he paid no attention to it. His existence narrowed – exquisitely, dangerously – to the feeling of her around him, to her mouth meeting his in a broken, frantic kiss, to her hands pushing him further inside of her. She curled her tongue around his moans, drank his climbing arousal to its peak.

His completion was not the end of his need. It merely allowed him to slow down.

He stroked Hermione everywhere he could reach. He slid against her until her scent covered him, played her with his fingers from distant but always clear memory, and he knew when she found her own satisfaction with a hiss, a shudder, and a swift bite to his lip. And then she let him continue to touch her, holding him lightly, until his body was finally sated and still and his smooth head rested against her stomach.

He could sense apprehension, and even fear, between both of them in the aftermath as their breathing slowed and their minds returned to them. But Voldemort was too exhausted to move after holding himself back for so long, too exhausted to contemplate how this destroyed and humiliated him, too exhausted to care. He sank into a dead sleep, the only kind of sleep he knew when he was not dreaming Harry's dreams. Hermione's fingers softly stroked his neck until his breathing was even and his mind empty.

She took longer to fall asleep, sore, filthy, and still unsettled. But she pulled the blankets over them, covering Voldemort completely and herself up to her chin. She thought she might have heard the slide of scales over the carpet, but if so, Nagini was not the jealous sort. Closing her eyes, Hermione eventually succumbed to the darkness. She woke only once in the night, her body twitching awake. But Voldemort never moved, and she never remembered what she dreamed. It was easy enough to sleep again.

**Author's Note: **It was hard to tread the M rating line, but I hope I managed to write a stimulating sex scene without mentioning bits, bobbles, or fluids. I didn't want to disappoint – after all, it took 200,000 words to finally get them together.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Author's Notes: **Thanks as always to my lovely beta, Bean. Slow and steady wins the race; the end is in sight.

**Chapter 20**

Hermione woke up to the sound of pounding on the door. Her eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling, momentarily confused as it was not the ceiling she was used to. The night before did not come back to her in a rush but in a slow trickle of memory, memory that made her cold and hot in turns. Voldemort lay still as the dead where she had left him, his head resting against the rise and fall of her stomach. When she gently lifted the covers, there he was like an ashen marble statue. His cheek was cool on her skin. She reached down to press on his neck under his jaw, stifling a twinge of panic, but she felt his pulse steady under her fingers.

For a while, she simply stayed there with her head on Voldemort's pillows, swallowed up in Voldemort's covers, his head smooth on her stomach. His hand was loosely wrapped around her calf. When she finally moved, she was able to pull herself out of his grasp without protest. In fact, he barely responded to her sliding away. She eased his head onto the mattress and stepped out of the bed. She shivered as she retrieved her robes and slipped them on. As warm as Voldemort kept his rooms, the fire had gone down and the heating spell had faded. She fought not to groan as muscles she had not used in years protested every movement.

Conscientious, she picked up Voldemort's robes from their heap on the floor near hers and set them out on the foot of the bed. She lifted the covers where he slept in the dark and slid his wand into his hand. After last night, she thought he might not want to be without it when he woke.

She also thought that when he woke, he would not want her to be there. His mind would be clear, clear enough for him to feel the full weight of their actions, and he would not want her to bear witness to that. Even if she did not believe it was humiliating for him, even if she believed it was supposed to be more humiliating for her.

After all, in spite of Voldemort's philosophy that considered sex weakness, both sides of the war would view any sexual interaction between them as a victory for Voldemort – the final act that would make her his, when he had owned her in all other ways. Harry would say she was brainwashed, that after becoming Voldemort's Medicus and eventually fighting by his side, screwing Voldemort was the last in a long effort to break Hermione to Voldemort's will. He would say that Hermione's duties as a Medicus – duties that she now saw as a necessity – had made her Voldemort's servant. More than that, maybe it even made her Voldemort's proverbial right hand man. And perhaps there had been a time when she would have thought that as well.

But something in her, in the way she saw her position with Voldemort, had changed. Hermione was not sure when it had started. Was it last night and her decision to let Voldemort slake his need with her? Was it when she agreed to protect him even in a battlefield of war? Was it when she agreed to be his Medicus? Or was it even further back, when she had slept at the foot of this very bed or when Voldemort once slept in her school bed with her, albeit in a very different form? She did not know if the change was new or whether the revelation of it was new. All she knew was that she should be humiliated, that the people she once called her friends would expect her to be humiliated. But she wasn't.

Hermione was uncertain how what they had done would affect Voldemort and how he might retaliate. However, she felt nothing but … a strange sort of peace. None of her old friends would have understood, but she thought Remus and Severus might. No matter how terrible, she was sure – _sure_ – that she had done the right thing.

She passed through his bathroom, then hers, adjusting her hair and her robes as she went. She heard the pounding on Voldemort's door again and wondered how long the person on the other side of that door had been there. Hermione planned to emerge through her chambers to see who was knocking and stave them off. Voldemort obviously needed the rest, not to mention additional time for his inevitable mortification.

A shriek caught in her throat as she opened the door to her chambers and saw Wormtail creeping toward her. She drew her wand and pointed it straight at him. At the doorway, Wormtail, too, reeled back in shock.

"Merlin, you scared me to death! What the hell are you doing here?" she snapped. "How did you even get in?"

"You must not have l-locked your door, otherwise the wards would have kept me out, I'm sh-sure," Wormtail said, bending down in a subservient position that looked half like a bow and half like he was afraid she was going to throw an Unforgivable at him. "The Dark Lord wasn't answering his door, and I th-thought, maybe you knew where he is or what he's doing."

"So you thought that my bath was the logical place to look next?" Hermione asked.

Wormtail shrugged and muttered too low for her to hear well, but she thought she heard "seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh, never mind," Hermione said, lowering her wand while still training the tip on him as she made him back away toward the door to the corridor. "Get out of here. Never, _never_ enter my chambers again, unless I let you in. Understood?"

"I'm s-sorry, I'm sorry." His hand fumbled at the knob when his back hit the door and he stumbled into the hall. Hermione followed him and pointedly locked her chambers with a wave of her wand.

A glance down the hall revealed a frowning Carmen, clearly thrilled with his companion.

"I told you that was a terrible idea," Carmen said, floating away from Voldemort's door, where he had been the one knocking. "Go on. I will handle it from here."

With a few more mumbled apologies, Wormtail slunk past Carmen's flying carpet and scurried down the hall and around a corner.

"Miserable little rodent, insisted on joining me to find the Dark Lord," Carmen explained. "When Lord Voldemort is thirty minutes late for a Death Eater meeting, we wait patiently. When he is an hour late … well, he has never been so late, and I feared the worst."

"The Dark Lord is sleeping after an extended healing session last night. He will rise when he's ready," Hermione replied. "I did not know he had a meeting this morning."

"Morning? Lady, it is afternoon," Carmen said. "And you look as though you only just woke up yourself. Come with me." He put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll put in an order to the house elves for breakfast, and you can tidy yourself up a bit before you venture out into these halls. You and I both know they probably won't mock you to your face, but there is no need to give them fodder to disparage you behind your back."

"Do they do that?" Hermione asked. She let Carmen lead her back to her rooms, and she unlocked the door and politely let him in first before closing the door behind her. Carmen charmed a piece of paper with the order for the kitchen elves and sent it under the door before turning his attention back to Hermione. "I don't particularly care if they do, since they said worse about me when I was Voldemort's pet, and the rest of the wizarding world said even worse. But I'm curious."

"Not as much as they used to," Carmen replied, joining her at her desk and hovering next to her. "I cannot say they never speak of you, but there have been other things to occupy their gossip."

"Anything I need to know?"

Carmen looked down for a brief moment, and Hermione's stomach twisted a little. "I don't think so. The Dark Lord is aware of certain factions of his followers who are not, shall we say, as devoted as he would like. Lord Voldemort manages them well, even distracted as he is."

Hermione glanced at him sharply. "You've noticed that he's been distracted."

A small platter with breakfast appeared on her desk next to her notebook. Upon seeing and smelling it, her stomach gave a resounding growl of approval. Hermione sighed at Carmen's smile and began to eat.

"Whatever ails him so much that he needs you, I suppose," Carmen said, shrugging. "He has been distracted for a while now, longer than I think even most of the Death Eaters know. But I suppose if he needs late night healing sessions, he has good reason to be distracted. And this one did not even accompany a terrible battle."

He cocked his head and took in her still somewhat mussed hair and formal Medicus dress robes – she was overdressed for just waking up, and certainly overdressed for a healing session.

"In theory, that is," he added.

Hermione continued eating and did not respond to his comment. Carmen bent down to peer at her face and the determined way she was not looking at him, then reached out with his wand to push her hair away from her neck. Her robes could hide most of any visible consequences of last night's encounter, and she could make herself move as though her muscles did not ache. But she left her rooms too hastily in order to see who was at Voldemort's door, and Wormtail in her rooms had not helped her presence of mind to hide any other results of Voldemort's attention.

Carmen's wand, thick and roughly hewn, traced the marks on her neck, bringing back the memory of Voldemort's mouth there. Hermione closed her eyes against the brief jolt of unfettered, startlingly physical arousal that accompanied the memory. Voldemort was unconscious and his desires were sated, at least for now. She could not blame the reaction on her empathic Medicus link to him.

As the tip of Carmen's wand followed the line of faint bruises down her neck to the collar of her satin Medicus robes, she felt the first flashes of shame. It was one thing to consent to sex with Voldemort when it was her duty, to want him because he needed her; it was entirely another to want him now, even when he did not need her.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt Carmen's whispered words brush against her exposed skin and felt a simple Concealment Charm cover the faint bruises. She paused there with her fork halfway to her mouth and waited for Carmen to say something, to smirk, to needle, anything the incorrigible flirt and matchmaker had done so many times before. Finally, she set her fork down and faced him.

Carmen's scarred and pocked face was a mix of thoughtfulness and vindication, with a touch of confusion. He put his wand back in its sheath on his belt and just sat there, his elbow on his knee as he considered her.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked.

"It wasn't against my will, if that's what you really mean to ask," Hermione replied.

Carmen ran a hand over his widow's peak. "You know, I always knew he was obsessed with you, the way he can be obsessed about people, people and power. And I ribbed him about admitting his love for you. But that was – that was just play. Now that … I find myself conflicted. For you, my dear. You were always subject to the worst of him."

"Stop," Hermione said, holding up her hand against his concern. "This was not the worst of him. Not by a long shot. It was barely even him. I did what I did to fulfill my duty as a Medicus."

"I know the Medicus reputation, but what could possibly…?"

"I can't discuss that with you. You shouldn't even know that we had sex, much less the reason," Hermione said. "The knocking caught me off guard."

"You mean," he lowered his voice conspiratorially, "you were in _his_ rooms when I was knocking?"

"Stop sounding like a first-year," Hermione said. "I'm his Healer. I'm often in his rooms for reasons that have nothing to do with anything like that."

"Wait. What do you mean that this was not the worst of him by a long shot?" Carmen's carpet swept around her, and he peered at her from a new angle, his dark eyes keen and almost giddy. "This was more than just not against your will, wasn't it? You _liked _it. It was_ good_."

"Not now, Carmen," Hermione said. Although she could not help the blush high on her cheeks, she was not feeling playful, nor was she feeling as excited as Carmen seemed to become. If anything, she began to feel nauseous.

"The two of you have been fighting each other every step of the way when the gods seem to demand your entwined fates. I do not care if he couched it in healing terms, and I do not care if you excused it as part of your duty. You have both wanted it for close to ten years now. You _wanted_…"

"Enough!" she shouted, drawing her wand and temporarily paralyzing his flying carpet with the force of her frustration. Not all of it was directed at Carmen, but he certainly was not helping. "You may think you know what you're talking about, but you don't. You don't have a clue what catalyzed the events of last night, nor should you, so I'll thank you to keep your mindless speculation to yourself. And just yourself. I don't want you gloating to Voldemort about how you told him so, because you didn't, and I don't want another word of it shared with anyone else. Or me. Understand?"

She kept her wand trained at his chest until his expression sobered from glee into something more contemplative.

"I will be as quiet as quiet mice," Carmen said, relenting. "Who else would I tell such things to anyway? I am no gossip. Whatever happened would only bolster the ill whispers against the Dark Lord. They may not understand his position on such things, but they do have an opinion on his position with you. I don't think they would accept or appreciate the 'medical' explanation as I do."

"What are they saying against Voldemort, exactly?" Hermione asked, lowering her wand. His carpet shivered as she restored its movement, and he settled down next to her again. She forced herself to return to eating, even if her stomach had not quite settled.

"If you're worried about a coup and for his safety, the Dark Lord is well aware of what they are saying against him, and who's saying it," Carmen said. "A certain amount of distrust and discontent from his unnamed ranks or from the Black Dogs or Cat's Paws is expected. However, the lower ranked followers joined him because they believed in his cause or because they did not believe in Dumbledore's or – Circe forbid – the Ministry's cause. It's the dissention from his Death Eaters on which the Dark Lord keeps his watchful eye."

"So Lucius is still grumbling, just not as directly," Hermione sighed. "You'd think he would learn."

"He's the most vocal of that faction. The Death Eaters did not just join a cause; they joined Voldemort himself. A cause lives on after the man, but if the man's power is perceived to wane…"

"Then so does the devotion," Hermione finished for him. "And that's partially why the Death Eaters scattered after Voldemort's first fall."

"That and they were cowards, of course," Carmen said, and Hermione gave a small grin as she ate the last bit of her breakfast. "That's why the same old guard that deserted him when they thought he was dead now wishes to desert him when they think he is dying. But they don't dare just yet. They have seen what Voldemort is still capable of. And more than that, I think they have seen what he is capable of with you at his side, as much as it galls them to admit that they fear you almost as much as him."

"You keep saying 'they,'" Hermione said, shifting in her seat to converse more comfortably with him. "But you have a Dark Mark on your forearm, by choice. You're a Death Eater, too. Are you afraid of me, too, then?"

"I would be bloody terrified, my dear, if I thought you believed me a threat," Carmen replied. Hermione noticed that his left arm twitched when she mentioned the Dark Mark. She recognized the gesture, the impulse to hide her forearm against her stomach. "Fortunately, you find me too charming to attack. With any alacrity, anyway."

Hermione smiled and looked down at her robes. She saw the wrinkles on the skirts. Marks on her neck aside – hidden marks, not healed marks – she bet she looked a state. Hermione walked to her wardrobe and opened the door so she could use the inside mirror. She assessed the damage. Her hair was not too bad, no worse than it usually was, although she should probably cut it again soon. All she needed to do was pull it back in a tail for now. She needed to change her robes, though.

"Stay over there," she ordered from behind the mirror. She began to unfasten the robes so she could change into something plainer and more comfortable, something that seemed less like she was dressing for someone. Especially when there was only one person in the entire fortress who she could possibly care to impress.

"Are you going to get naked again so soon?" Carmen asked. "I know I am just that appealing, but I long suspected your immunity."

"I'm just changing. Don't look."

"I'm a Death Eater, remember? Of course I'm going to look," Carmen said.

"No, you won't," Hermione replied quietly. She did not doubt that Carmen would look if she felt like showing. She also knew that Carmen wouldn't look now.

Hermione dressed efficiently, wrapped up in a more practical set of Medicus robes in a little over a minute. She closed the wardrobe as she tied her hair back away from her face. Carmen, gentleman that he was, had not moved from where she left him floating. His gaze drifted over her, as though he wondered what he had missed, but she did not feel self-conscious under his scrutiny.

"Carmen, why on earth did you become a Death Eater?" Hermione said, shaking her head.

"The Dark Lord didn't give you my origin story? Well, it is a harrowing tale of dastardly deeds and rakish exploits, and there's some bodice ripping somewhere in the middle…" Carmen said. He leaned back and smiled, his teeth bright against his leathered, scarred skin.

"Voldemort told me you joined him because Dumbledore wouldn't cure you of your impotence," Hermione said.

Carmen's smile faltered a bit. "He did not see it as important enough for his notice. Lord Voldemort only needed a day's worth of research before he managed to cure me."

Hermione went over to her laboratory area and started boiling water for tea. She lifted a teacup in a silent query; Carmen shook his head no.

"Come on, Carmen," Hermione said, digging in a drawer for a teabag. "You're a smart man. Voldemort would not confide in you if you weren't. You are not the kind of man who uses his dick as a political compass, pardon the crudity."

"No pardon necessary, I find it refreshing."

"I guess you went to St. Mungo's to get yourself checked, and that came up dry. But you could have hired a temporary Medicus. If it took Voldemort only a day to find an answer, a Medicus would not take much longer," Hermione said. "I think you even said you've had one before."

"I never had a Medicus for the impotency, no," Carmen said. "I had one back in the '40s, when I lost my leg. Auror Moody gets by on a wooden stump, but I suffered a cursed amputation. The carpet was her idea – this was back before they became so regulated. But no, it has been decades since I last had the pleasure of hiring a Medicus."

"So you hadn't exhausted all Healing possibilities," Hermione replied, "and you go to Dumbledore of all people to cure you? Ithink your problem was a pretense." She brought the steeping cup to her nightstand and sat on the still-made bed. Carmen joined her, floating near her knees.

"Clever girl," Carmen said, his eyes narrowed and glinting with a mischievous light. "My personal concerns were deadly important to me, of course. But more than that, even then I knew that they were forming sides. They had been covertly recruiting me; I saw merit in both. I see that disappoints you, but I do have my opinions on magical blood. What it came down to was that Dumbledore dismissed something that was important to me because it wasn't important to him; Voldemort helped me because he knew it was important to me."

"I think I understand that, but I don't know if I understand why Dumbledore's actions bothered you _so much_," Hermione said. "I assume that your personal concern was not as important to your decision as Dumbledore's and Voldemort's respective causes." She blew lightly on her tea and sipped from it.

"Yes and no, my dear," Carmen explained. "I am sure that you understand my deeper reasons for rejecting Dumbledore. He presents an image of a dotty old fool or a wise sage or a kindly gentleman – he is these things when it pleases him. But underneath it all is a keen, manipulative, power-hungry mind. He builds his trust on deceit. When he dismissed me, he pretended to be incapable of aiding me. He drank with me and offered a lemon sherbet and acted the benevolent leader… until I told him that I still needed to consider my allegiance. You have seen how he is when his mask slips."

"Yes," Hermione replied softly. "I know why he does what he does, but I think it hurts those who trust him the most." She knew there was no reason to bring up Harry's name. Or her own.

"Precisely. I respect Dumbledore's position and power," Carmen said. "However, Lord Voldemort was different. He put on a more charismatic face for the public while he gradually gained influence within the Ministry and among the elite of the European wizarding world. He had only just started showing his true intent when he approached me, first through other Death Eaters, and then himself. And he … he did not hide himself from me.

"There are things he keeps secret, of course – things that perhaps only you know, lady – but Lord Voldemort made no attempt to disguise his character from me into something more acceptable. When I told him I was reluctant to choose a side, he told me he could wait. And he could. He knew from the very beginning that I would be on his side even without the Dark Mark, _because_ he would not force it upon me, _because_ he did not hide himself from me, and _because _he made my concerns his concerns. These are things that Dumbledore would not do for me, and so I could not waste myself on him."

Hermione continued to drink her tea, lost in thought.

"I was reluctant to accept the Dark Mark and all that being a Death Eater entails," Carmen added. "I would have preferred to remain on the Dark Lord's side in my previous capacity. But I would rather wear the Dark Mark than shackle myself to the likes of Albus Dumbledore."

She cradled her teacup in her lap and sighed. "I can't say I feel the same, but then my loyalty wasn't to Dumbledore. I mean, it was to some degree, but mostly because he mattered to my friends."

"Perhaps my motives were selfish, but I think everyone is a little selfish when they choose a side," Carmen said.

"Maybe you're right. I soured on him when he denied me access to the Order, even though he let Ron and Harry in. The Order told me they wanted to protect me from the Dark Arts. They did a real bang-up job of it, too." She laughed wryly. "Still, no matter how much I disliked him then, and no matter how I grew to hate him, I don't think I ever would have joined Lord Voldemort. But then my motives would be selfish, as you said, given his position on people like me."

"His position on _you_ has changed," Carmen said.

Hermione set the rest of her tea on the nightstand and lowered her eyes.

"In any case, my selfishness makes me a more loyal servant to him than most of the Death Eaters," Carmen said. "The ones that are still as loyal as they ever were, they joined for him as well as his politics, in equal measures. It's the ones that joined him for one or the other whose loyalty wanes now."

"And just what are the two of you discussing?" interrupted a cold voice from the side door.

"The potential threat of mutiny," Carmen replied. His expression was neutral with his usual touch of amusement, nothing to suggest that he knew what Voldemort and Hermione had done. "Your Medicus wanted to know if it was anything she needed to worry about."

"And you assured her that I was aware of the threat," Voldemort said, stepping into the room. His thick, high-collared robes hid any marks that might have marred his skin, if there were any. "What are you doing here?"

"The meeting, my lord. I worried when you were more than fashionably late, but Hermione tells me that a healing session caused you to oversleep."

"Tell them to wait a little longer," Voldemort said evenly. His expression, too, was unreadable. Hermione understood why they so enjoyed playing chess together. "I need to have a few words with my Medicus."

"Yes, my lord." Carmen floated away without a comment or a pointed look, both of which Hermione knew would be so easy for him. She appreciated that he kept his word to her.

The second after the door latch clicked, Voldemort whirled on her with rage blazing in his red eyes.

"He knows," he hissed.

"How the—never mind. He won't tell." Hermione stood up from her bed and faced him squarely. It was hard to be intimidating when she was significantly shorter than Voldemort, but she would settle for not being intimidated.

"Of course he won't tell, because he knows what I would do to him. But he should not know what transpired to begin with, you insufferable wh—"

"Complete that insult, Voldemort," Hermione said icily. "I dare you."

He closed his mouth mid-epithet, but between the two of them, the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. They glared at each other, backs straight and bodies tense.

"We _were_ speaking about your followers," Hermione explained. "I told him nothing. He deduced it for himself. Once we moved past the subject, we continued with the matter of your followers."

"That doesn't change that he shouldn't know, Medicus," Voldemort snapped.

"And that doesn't change that he does, Lord Voldemort," Hermione said. "You may think you'd tell Harry before you would tell Carmen, but after me, you confide in him the most. You do so to keep him loyal. It may bother you that he knows, but let's cut to the chase. Carmen is not the problem here. Of all the Death Eaters to know, he's the best one – he won't tell anyone, and he won't think less of you for it. So he is not the problem. _We_ are the problem for you, aren't we?"

Voldemort stood there, his stillness belying the tempest of fury and humiliation buffeting behind his narrowed eyes. Just a day before, he could barely think for the strength of his physical desire. Now that the desire had been satisfied, his sexual distraction was replaced by the equally powerful distraction of shame. Voldemort had few rules for himself, but since he hired his Medicus, he had broken almost every single one of them, each more egregious than the last. He wondered whether she would cause him to break the rest of them as well.

"I understand that you are uncomfortable with last night's events," Hermione continued. She did not add that she shared that discomfort. "But it did help, didn't it? Do you feel more focused than yesterday?"

He stared down at her. He had not seen her last night, but he knew the robes that she had chosen, so he could imagine her with an exceptional degree of accuracy. But now she was there before him, dressed plainly and practically, her face a bit drawn, with light shadows under her eyes, still tired. And yet … his gaze was drawn to her as though no time had passed between the moment she confronted him about the girl he killed and when she returned to him to relieve those desires that had plagued him.

He woke up to a shivering body cocooned in darkness. He had crawled out of bed like a chastised dog to warm the room and rekindle the fire in the hearth. The persistent burning _need_ had dissipated, but all was not well. Superficially, he felt better than after the other girls, more like his old self before this horrifying twist in his illness. At the same time, though, something was different. Perhaps part of it was the way he wished he could hide himself for succumbing to the consequences of the decay. Perhaps part of it was a sense of self-betrayal and the loathing that accompanied it, that he could not trust his magic, his mind, and now his body. He wished he could shed himself like a snakeskin for one he could use rather than one that used him.

But more than that, it was perhaps the strange feeling of paradox – as though someone crept into his chambers as he slept and moved all the furniture, then put it back right where he left it. Everything was almost exactly the same as it was before, and yet everything felt indeterminably and indelibly altered in its sameness.

She looked up at him, his Medicus, seemingly unaffected. But even so, when he stepped closer to her, he watched her fight not to back away. She could not go very far even if she tried – her bed was right behind her.

"The knowledge that Carmen realizes what we have done aside, I believe my condition has improved," Voldemort murmured, moving still closer until his outer robes brushed against her bare foot. He forced her to tilt her head to a more uncomfortable angle to maintain eye contact. "But you said you could feel it when the need began to overwhelm me. What do you sense now, Medicus?"

His jaw was tight as he reached for her wrist, that vulnerable, sensitive place where he could feel her life pulsing through her and the delicate bones beneath, more invasive and intimate than holding a hand. He had always owned her those times before, and he wanted – needed – to feel the quickening of her heart in trepidation. He needed to reclaim his position over her. Medicus though she was, her slow submission to him had been so promising until she forced him to bring himself low in her presence, within her. He wanted the Darkness in her and her allegiance to him to make her squirm again, to make her lower her eyes in assent to him. Just as he always had.

But when he reached for her wrist, she stretched out her hand for him, to sense the state of his serpentine instincts. As before, she had felt his need from a distance when it was overwhelming, but closeness and contact facilitated a more thorough understanding of those particular needs. She reached for his wrist only as a subconscious mirror to his own action.

At the moment of contact, both of them realized from the spark and snap of current in the closed circuit of their flesh what they feared: that the desire was only at bay, not gone. Just because he had been able to satisfy that particular need with her in a way he had not managed with the other girls did not mean that he had eliminated a month's worth of sexual instinct in one night.

Hermione was the one who released him first. She did not look away from him, refusing to give him that satisfaction. But Voldemort was familiar with the way her pupils dilated and her pulse quickened under the long fingers still wrapped around her wrist. He had observed it in myriad others, sometimes directed at him. And he had observed it with her before. When she discovered the antidote to the Nightmare potion, when she trailed her fingers over the spines of the books of his personal library, when he wrenched himself away from kissing her.

He did not need to touch, did not need to feel himself over her skin, did not need her body.

He did not need her now, but he wanted her.

His stomach dropped and underneath his layers of clothing, his cold body warmed in a brief but intense wave of heat, a confusing flush of both humiliation and power. His grip on her tightened. She did not pull away, even as he leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead. Yes, this was familiar. The thrill of owning her had not changed. But it was deeper, somehow, made more profound by the shudder inside of him that made him close his eyes.

"So the situation has not changed," Hermione said, breaking the deceptively languid flow of his thoughts. Her voice lacked some of the professional authority she wanted.

"It has improved," Voldemort conceded. "But it appears that improvement is only temporary, as it was before."

"It's only for a little while longer," she said quietly.

"Too long." But even as he said it, his mouth drifted down the side of her face to trail over her jaw, exploring the new layer of his regard for her. Her blood raced under his fingers, and she turned her head so that her mouth met his in a fleeting touch, not even a kiss. The stutter of her breath against his skin made him remember how he once reveled in the control he had over those with weaker resolve than he. He did still, even though his own breath came short and quick. He wanted to force her back onto the bed, slide one knee onto the mattress, and kiss her down, beneath him. He wanted her conquered again, even if doing so would mean that she conquered him as well. He hated the desire as much as it enticed him.

Hermione's fingers fluttered, found his wrist again, and her lips pressed more firmly against his, lingering. The pleasure she felt in doing so was undeniable. Voldemort stroked the line of marks that Carmen's spell concealed, as though he knew they were there and that they were his. When he pulled away, he used every ounce of control he had left not to make a sound.

He stepped back, not staggering or holding himself away from her. He did not need to, not yet, another reminder that what they had just done was not the result of a pressing symptom of a disease. Voldemort was again assaulted by the disconcerting sensation that everything and nothing had changed.

"The battle is in a few days, and I must prepare with my Death Eaters, while my mind is still with me," Voldemort said. As though nothing had happened, even though the air crackled in the gap between them. "You should join tomorrow's meeting to know our strategy and best assess how to help protect me."

"That sounds reasonable," Hermione replied. "You're already very late. You should go now."

Her hands smoothed over her robes, and she took a deep breath when he turned to leave. But before he reached the door, Hermione said, "Maybe you shouldn't wait for it to get so bad you can't think next time."

Voldemort paused, met her eyes. "Especially at this critical point in the war, I cannot afford to lose my head."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Your proposal is acceptable."

"If Carmen mocks you, you have my full permission to curse him within an inch of his life," Hermione said. "And then bring him to me."

Voldemort's mouth curved into a tight smile, and he pulled out his wand, fingers wrapping around it as delicately and possessively as her wrist. "My pleasure."


	21. Chapter Twenty-one

**Author's Notes:** Things are winding down now, and the end is nigh. I hope to have this finished by the end of March. Thanks to my ever patient beta, Bean.

**Chapter 21**

Blasts hit on every side, a barrage of explosions against the rapidly dissolving defenses. The opposition knew what to expect from her. The time between this battle and the last gave them ample opportunity to figure out how to counteract the benefit Voldemort gained from her more unique defensive spells and barriers. The curses flooded their vision with fire and heated under the charmed dome around them. The hair at her temples that was not plastered to her cheeks with sweat frizzed in a corona around her face. She fought the urge to duck and managed to convince herself that the fire was not getting through. As soon as the hair on her arms started sizzling, she sent a blast of cool air out and around them.

Voldemort seemed unfazed by the heat – the Warming Charm she had cast before the battle had worn off quite a bit of time ago, and he must have welcomed it. He took the Cooling Charm she used to counter the heat and strengthened it, exploding it out from them at the Aurors and veteran Order members that surrounded them. Dumbledore and Harry stayed behind this time, waiting for their more seasoned soldiers to clear the way for them more effectively. During the last battle they had brought their most valuable pieces in too quickly and almost sacrificed them too soon. They did not make that mistake again, and this time they managed to plow a path all the way back to the Death Eaters.

Voldemort sent the Death Eaters away to rally and circle around the soldiers attacking him, communicating silently through a touch to Hermione's Dark Mark. He had requested her to strip half the sleeve off for easier access that morning. She supposed the fact that it displayed the Dark Mark for the other side to see also served its own purpose, but at this time, Voldemort wasn't concerned about grandstanding.

Right now, his teeth were clenched and bared as he flung curse after curse from his arsenal, spitting them out as fast as he could point his wand until it seemed as though a litany of hisses slithered off his tongue. He did not seem angry, but intensely focused. There was none of the nonchalance of the last battle, when he had been more confident in the integrity of the defenses.

"Hermione," he murmured as many of the Aurors staggered back, some fallen and some healing themselves and a few still casting against the defense spells even as Hermione tried to fortify hers. "Have you ever maintained defense spells through Apparition?"

She shook her head, unable to speak during her own casting.

"You need to focus as hard on the spells as you would an Apparition location," he said. He clenched his fist around his wand. "Do not let anything distract you from it, disorienting though it may be. Brace yourself."

He hooked his free arm through hers and spun them around so that they were gone in a swirl, the defense barrier collapsing with a pop. She was immediately disoriented both by their circular motion – like a broken carousel – and the squeezing, dark nowhere of Apparition. In a flash, they were flying above the melee of witches and wizards. She tightened her grip on Voldemort's arm and tested whether the defense spells made it through. The foundation was mostly sound, and she repaired any frays as she found them. She never liked flying, so she devoted her attention exclusively to maintaining the defense spells and holding on through the trail of odorless smoke they left in their wake. Voldemort shouted his spells down upon the Aurors that had been attacking him before. His wide eyes glittered from the forked lighting that erupted from the end of his wand.

Hermione could hear herself breathing in shallow gasps as they swept around once again into the darkness. They reappeared in cold fog, and Voldemort sent out the lightning again, this time indiscriminately through the opaque cloud. Now that Voldemort had taken to the air, the members of Dumbledore's Army and Voldemort's followers who could fly joined them. Hermione's stomach sank down to her knees – it meant that Apparition would be more dangerous, because he would not know where an area would be vacant.

The fog dissipated mere seconds after Voldemort's cast his lightning out, and Hermione saw people falling from the air, a few of them in black cloaks as well. She thought she saw Severus and hoped that it was another man with longer black hair who hit the ground face down. The grass was stained again – perhaps the killing fields had developed a taste for their battles now, despite the scorch marks scarring the earth.

"Hold on," Voldemort hissed in her ear, and that was the only warning she had before they were lost in a whirlwind of smoke and Apparition. Her ears popped every time they disappeared and reappeared, and the contents of her stomach roiled, but there was no time for her to do anything but maintain the spells and deflect away anything that might threaten it. Each second they reappeared, Voldemort cast a Killing Curse and Disapparated with her again.

There was no rhyme or reason to where he would reappear, so there was no way for the other side to know who to protect. Voldemort ignored the back of Dumbledore's ranks where Harry and Dumbledore must still be waiting. If Voldemort's aim was to confuse his enemy, it was working. Many of those who could not fly had summoned their brooms, and now the air above looked like a vicious Quidditch match of black robes against accents of gold and crimson. While his second lightning spell shocked the fliers indiscriminately, his Killing Curses were deadly accurate in spite of the split seconds he had to cast them.

It was a surprise when their feet hit the ground, and Hermione stumbled, with only Voldemort keeping her from falling all the way down. As he helped pull her up, she saw a streak of red heading straight toward them. Indistinguishable as it was to the untrained eye, she would recognize it anywhere. She may not have known a lot about Quidditch, but she recognized a Seeker's dive like she had been cheering for Gryffindor only yesterday. Harry had lost none of his skill in the long time between graduation and these battles.

Instinctively reacting, Hermione stabbed her wand at the sky and cast a simple wall spell, a bulky and short-lived charm that didn't shield against other spells and was usually considered unwieldy for battle. For the average person walking or running into it was akin to sprinting through Platform 9 and ¾ when it closed. One might be left dazed or bruised – worst-case scenarios involved a broken nose or a concussion. But even Hermione winced, heart skipping a beat, when Harry's Firebolt splintered nearly to toothpicks from the impact as Harry slammed into it. She could swear she heard bones break, each snap louder than the last.

Before Voldemort could take advantage of her impromptu defensive casting, Hermione swept her wand up in an arc so that Harry flew backward. It was within the letter of the Medicus law to get him far away from Voldemort, but Hermione knew she tred a thin line by saving him. There was a possibility – low, since it would not fit the prophecy, but a possibility nonetheless – that the impact had killed him or irreparably damaged his brain. But if not, she was certainly not going to be the author of Harry's destruction by making it easy for Voldemort to kill him while Harry was unconscious, his body broken.

She prayed he was okay, that someone caught him before he hit the ground. Near where he fell, she saw the blur of Apparation and hoped that someone had taken him away. She had no illusions – if he lived, he would be furious, but he would not blame her. She remembered his words in the last battle. He told her he would not try to kill her, which would save him from Medicus inference, but he was willing to attack her accidentally. Hermione only hoped Harry understood she extended him the same courtesy.

Voldemort steadied her, then grabbed her by the nape of the neck hard, his jaw twitching from restrained rage. Despite his fury – and with the sounds of battle around them and the defense shields flashing with each spell that hit them – her roiling stomach stilled and heated. Her lips parted in a startled, silent gasp.

Since she and Voldemort agreed to tend to his instinctual needs more often instead of waiting until they became unbearable, they had eliminated his distractions every evening up to the battle, and once again before the battle in case it interfered with his focus. Yet still, as he held her, she felt what he felt from that contact, the rage mingling with the rise of his unwanted desire, exactly the distraction he hoped to avoid. His mouth opened slightly as he tried to catch his breath, and she felt it cold on her cheek. She did not know how a battlefield could suddenly go quiet, but it did, for a few seconds.

He did not push her away or reel back, nothing to show he was ashamed – to do so would call more attention to the invisible intensity between them, and that would cause him far more harm. Voldemort simply released her neck, unable to conceal the shiver that made his heavy robes tremble. They decided to mutually ignore the moment – her defenses would not last long enough if she continued to ignore them – and they turned to fight back to back.

An Auror with a missing eye but no magical replacement slammed the defense shield with spells that impacted like cannon blasts. Hermione ducked and cast a Reflector Charm, which absorbed the spell and split it in two, one still heading for them – the shield could handle it – and the other returning to its caster. Hermione winced and looked away. There were new bits missing from him now. Another Auror fisted his robes and Disapparated with him, but left his pieces behind.

Voldemort linked his arm with hers again, which was the only warning she had to keep the defenses up while they Apparated. But after they reappeared, something large slammed into them from the side. Hermione felt as though they had been tackled by Hagrid. They tumbled out of the sky between the broomsticks and the lightning. Her defenses were still up, and Hermione frantically did a quick assessment.

As she and Voldemort rolled round and round in the air, Hermione caught a glimpse of a steely-eyed Dumbledore. He had not bothered with trying to get a spell through. Instead, he had put up defense spells as comprehensive as hers and struck her shields with his. Their shields were now interlocked like thick bubbles in the sky. The shock had startled Voldemort enough that his self-levitation failed, and he struggled to regain his sense of which way was up so that he could right them.

And still Dumbledore pushed down on them as Hermione tried to push back and slow their descent. The spells stringed themselves together like a web, latching their two shields together. Voldemort started to slow them down and roll them upright, but then Hermione had to divert her defensive attention to making sure they didn't break their bones when they hit the ground in less than two seconds.

She swished her wand quickly at the ground and cast "_Culcitatum_" just in time. She didn't have enough time to keep them afloat or engage any myriad possible charm to keep them from hitting the ground. The first thing that came to her head was a Pillow Charm, which was still effective, if a little undignified. They tumbled over the ground that now emulated fluffy, goose-down pillows.

Hermione gritted her teeth. The ground felt like pillows, but she and Voldemort felt like a mass of elbows and knees, poking at the other. Voldemort grunted as her knee hit his stomach, and he doubled over.

They finally came to a stop around the younger Death Eaters battling their peers. It was interesting to Hermione how, after about twenty or thirty minutes of a battle, the opposition always seemed to find the opponents who were as much personal as political. These Order members were all familiar, faces Hermione recognized from her almost seven years at Hogwarts, while the original Death Eaters and Black Dogs fought with seasoned Aurors and Order members. There was some overlap, of course, and there were other factions fighting for each side, but Hermione still noticed an almost unconscious need for each side to take offense with the ones they knew.

A spell Neville cast covered her defense shield with blue light before she could scurry to her feet, but Voldemort grabbed her wrist and she took his to pull him to his feet. He whirled around, an action more impressive – if less beautiful – in his heavier robes than his lighter ones. After sending a curse in Neville's direction, Voldemort cast the Body-Bind Curse behind him so that he could see Dumbledore before he killed him.

But Dumbledore's shields were as unshakeable as hers, although the fall had shaken him as much as Voldemort and Hermione. The Body-Bind Curse bounced harmlessly off. His glasses were askew, and he took a little longer than Voldemort to get back to his feet.

Just as the younger Order members noticed Voldemort and Hermione, the younger Death Eaters also noticed Dumbledore. They interspersed curses at their old peers with flashes of even more dangerous light at their opponents' generals. Most of the spells didn't even make a dent in the respective shields, and so Voldemort left Hermione to maintain the defenses while he turned his focus exclusively to Dumbledore, who had no such luxury. They trained their wands on each other, flinging nonverbal spells at each other as fast as they could think and counter. These spells were more advanced, more powerful than most of the fairly garden-variety hexes and curses that the younger Order members flung at them.

There were screams as snakes formed from the dry grass and writhed over each other, nipping at the heels of the nearest unfortunate souls. They lashed at Dumbledore's shields, but as spells themselves, they could not penetrate it. They were not intended for Dumbledore, though, not directly; they were simply another distraction, to appeal to his compassion. Most of Voldemort's followers conjured their brooms or Apparated away from the mass of serpents.

That was another advantage in Voldemort's favor in the middle of a large-scale battle, Hermione thought. He had nothing to regret, no followers for which he would mourn, no heart to pierce. However cold a general Dumbledore tried to be, he would try to ensure as many survived as possible. He always got too attached.

Hermione did not think Dumbledore's capacity to love was a weakness any more than Harry's was – on the contrary, she believed they were great strengths, aspects of the two of them that made them more whole than Lord Voldemort. It meant they had more to fight for, more reward when they won, but it also meant that they had more to lose. Voldemort only needed to preserve his life and power to be satisfied. It was just her luck that she was inextricably linked to those things now.

Dumbledore retaliated, summoning an earthquake, which got to them from under their shields. Witches and wizards around them collapsed as the quake radiated outward, and Hermione tripped and tumbled against Voldemort before hitting the ground. Her wand tumbled out of her hand, cutting off the magic through its conduit.

The defense shield around them winked out of existence.

Hermione reached for her wand and grabbed it, casting the defenses again. The residue of the spell still lingered in the air around them, quickly reforming, but those few seconds were enough.

A simple Jelly-Legs hit Voldemort from behind. His legs buckled when they refused to hold his weight. Then Dumbledore sent a brilliant white spell at him, hitting him in the chest and sending his robes and skin up in cold flames.

Then the defenses were back, and Hermione doused the white flames with a less lethal hybrid of an Air-Sucker Hex and a Smothering Curse. For a few terrifying moments, Voldemort tried to inhale and exhale, but he could do neither, not with all the air sucked from his lungs and no air around him. But the spells deprived the cold fire of oxygen and disappeared, leaving Voldemort's skin patched with frostbite and his robes worse for wear, but those were things that could be fixed.

Voldemort looked back, livid but not at her. His eyes narrowed at some point near her right ear.

"You're bleeding," he said.

Hermione brought her free hand up to her forehead. She hadn't felt a thing, in the adrenaline of the whole attack, but now the stinging started. She experienced momentary dizziness, but the cut didn't feel deep.

"It's nothing," Hermione said. "Can you stand?"

"Can you?" he asked, heedless of the din and flashes of the battle around them. He trusted her defenses as long as her wand stayed in her hand.

She levitated both of them to their feet. With the Jelly-Legs Jinx worn off, Voldemort spun back around and called down the lightning on Albus Dumbledore. Deafening thunder rolled and echoed over the hills, and Hermione had to look away from the blinding light.

Voldemort hooked his arm in hers again, his silent signal. She was still a little hazy, but she could still maintain the defenses as they Disapparated. They reappeared behind Dumbledore. Voldemort did not bother with an earthquake – he simply cracked open the ground. Dirt and grass tumbled down into the gap like a sinkhole. Dumbledore's defenses flickered as he lost his footing and began to slip down into the darkness. Voldemort raised his wand and called two Dementors from their position waiting in the thunderclouds.

The coldness of the Dementors wrapped around her, and it seemed as though her senses were heightened instead of dulled. In the distance, she saw flashes of red hair. She saw long hair spread over grass.

She saw the werewolf that Voldemort had spoken to before, followed by his Medicus, running among other werewolves. They were not transformed, of course, but she was still able to tell, because they clashed with another set of werewolves even more ragged and worn than Voldemort's. She watched as dark cloaks mingled with darker cloaks. Some of them – the ones who retained part of their wolf nature as men and women – discarded the use of their wands in favor of their own teeth. One of them ripped the throat out of a man with sandy hair and threadbare robes. Hermione could not see his face; his back was turned, and he fell forward. His face hit the ground, and she could not help but think she just watched one of her only friends die at the mercy of his own curse.

Dumbledore was too busy trying not to sink into the earth to cast Expecto Patronum. As despair twisted his face to show his full age, his pale eyes cast their gaze to the skies beyond the Dementors. His wand, though, pointed down. A blast shook the crack wider, but Dumbledore shot into the sky. It was a simple explosion, all he could manage without foundation under his feet, and the shock wave pushed him out, spinning head over heels. Although his defenses faltered, he could then cast Expecto Patronum. The Dementors retreated, moving their feast back to the battle in the skies.

"_Avada_—" Voldemort began, raising himself above Dumbledore's crumpled form, but the curse was cut short as winds whipped around them. Because Dumbledore's spell merely manipulated the wind rather than create it, the spell passed through Hermione's defenses. The shields didn't even slow it down. She and Voldemort were buffeted and tossed back and forth and around and around, struck by debris as the twister pulled them up and tossed them into the melee. But Voldemort wasn't falling out of control this time, and he used the momentum to pass in a dark blur between his followers and his opponents, casting the Killing Curse again in bursts of green light. Dumbledore was a mere blue and red glow behind them, and Hermione knew that he would carry the deaths after every green light on his shoulders.

The lightheadedness from being blown about and hitting the ground and flying around became deeper, like someone stuffing cotton behind her eyes. Arms numb, it was no surprise when they began to slip from Voldemort's. He slowed in the air, hovered, and tightened his grip.

"_Enervate_." Voldemort's spell managed to make her open her eyes, but she felt herself fogging over again.

"Voldemort…" she murmured.

He made his decision swiftly, curling his deceptively strong arm around her waist and hoisting her against him. He touched the backs of his fingers against her Dark Mark, communicating through her that he needed to leave for his Medicus's safety. Apparation took longer this time to get from the battlefield to her bedroom. Her legs were losing feeling now, so he had to drag her to a chair before going to her cabinets in the part of her room that was her laboratory.

He knew exactly where she kept her Strengthening Solution, and if that did not work, there were a few vials of Brain Ache she had brewed that would address a concussion or similar issues.

Voldemort tilted Hermione's head back. She stared blearily at him, but at least she was still awake. The side of her face revealed more blood dried in the tangle of her hair. Voldemort held her chin and brought the vial to her lips. She rested her head against the chair as she swallowed.

The Strengthening Solution blossomed warmth in her stomach, and with it, she felt immediately energized in a way _Enervate_ had not managed. She grabbed the vial and drank the rest of it on her own.

"You should take a swallow of this as well." Voldemort handed her the Brain Ache bottle. She was already ahead of him, reaching for a teaspoon. After she had swallowed her dose, she gripped the edge of the table, still dizzy. There was no sound in the room other than the scurrying of mice and lizards at their abrupt entrance.

"Do we need to go back?" Hermione asked.

"Give me your arm," Voldemort said. She sighed and walked around the table, extending it for him. He touched the Dark Mark until it felt almost too hot, as if the lines of black ink were actually places where his magic singed her skin. She heard his silent inquiry to his followers who were still fighting, and their reply back.

"No," he answered, releasing her. "Dumbledore has also left the battlefield, and the remainder of the battle is nothing but posturing."

"We won," Hermione murmured. Even though Voldemort had left first, it was because of her. He did not retreat to lick his own wounds but to take care of his Medicus, as he was contractually obligated to do.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, escaped the battlefield weakened, and with Harry Potter taken away and many key elements of the Order and the Aurors taken out, Voldemort's efforts in his third battle led to another victory. However, that victory was not as total as his first. There was no word on Harry dying, no doom in the eyes of the opposition, and so Hermione felt she could rightfully assume that Harry was still alive. And Voldemort had also suffered major losses that he hadn't before, even in the last two battles: the werewolf alpha with the Medicus and several Death Eaters that included Rabastan and Lisa. In addition, Bellatrix was badly injured.

"So there's time to fix this," Hermione said quietly, tugging on the ruins of his robes. The frostbitten patches of his skin made it appear as if he were a gravestone statue in the process of crumbling. While in the midst of the battle, Voldemort could not let himself concentrate on any pain. Now that he was alone with Hermione, he could feel the nerves dying and screaming all over him, and Hermione could feel it through him.

Pain was nothing new for him; he had exceptional talent for tolerating any sort of pain, after all his years torturing himself into what he thought was a superior being. He stared at the lines and patches of cold burn on his arms under the burnt sleeves, the raw flesh of his hands. The cold fire had not reached his palms, so it had not impeded his ability to hold his wand.

"It is nothing," Voldemort said. "A simple surface healing potion will heal it."

Hermione shook her head. "You don't need that kind of magic right now. And you shouldn't do any magic for the next week if possible."

"Hermione…" Voldemort began.

"I know," she interrupted with a little smile. "But I still have to say it."

She scratched at some of the blood near the place she hit her head. That was all it was now, just a healing wound. She would have some of the general healing potion later. A bump on the head wasn't bad enough to merit her attention now that a concussion was out of the picture. The mild stinging she felt over her body that mirrored Voldemort's burns told her that was her first priority.

"I remember reading about this spell; I can't remember the countercurse, but I know where to find it. _I'll_ have to cast it," she said. "Come on."

Hermione headed into her bathroom and sensed more than heard Voldemort follow behind her.

"Don't think I forgot how you saved Harry Potter from me," Voldemort murmured. He was a few steps behind her, but he sounded as if he were at her ear, his accusation probing deep into her mind.

"I stopped him from attacking you," Hermione explained. "And in doing so, I endangered his life, so I had to save him. It is not my duty, Voldemort, to kill your enemies or neutralize them, only to keep them away."

"That is a weak excuse to hide your sentimentality," Voldemort said.

"It was a decision to avoid Medicus retaliation based on my mistake," Hermione replied. "There were less destructive ways I could have protected you from Harry without…" Hermione swallowed as the sound echoed in her head: bones breaking like dry twigs under a boot.

There were less destructive ways she could have protected Voldemort from Harry, but she had to think on her feet during battle, and she couldn't think too hard about the fact that almost killing Harry was automatic to her.

As she approached the mantel in Voldemort's quarters, she braced herself against the call of the spells in the books within. She had to do that every single time. She couldn't run from it anymore, had to even accept the way the Dark Arts surrounded her again. Her final obstacle was not embracing the Dark Arts the way she embraced her place as Voldemort's Medicus. The magical wall she had used to stop Harry was hardly Dark Magic, but she had known what it would do when she cast it, and with all the other signs that she was not the Hermione she'd thought she was going to be in her youth….

But then again, after she had been kidnapped from her life before, had she imagined that she would end up here in his rooms with Voldemort following behind her?

She threw the powder into the fire, took a deep breath as though she could stop the library's Dark Magic from getting inside her that way, and ducked in.

Voldemort knew the spell that Dumbledore had used against him, and all he had needed to do to remember the countercurse was find the book in his mind, and there the spell against the Phoenix Ice was, as fresh and clear as if he read it yesterday. (He could never accuse Dumbledore of failing to keep with a theme, but then Voldemort was partial to serpentine magic, so he could hardly throw stones.)

He could have told her, or he could have done the spell himself. But his Medicus wanted him to refrain from magic, and she looked so determined, steeled for his font of Dark knowledge as ever she was. It would be a shame to interrupt her. She seemed more comfortable amongst his books than defending him on the battlefield, though. Practically at home, and Voldemort believed even she knew that. She had to breathe eventually.

Voldemort crossed his arms over his chest, pulling the singed shreds of his robes over the exposed, burned skin. He watched her through the shelves, disheveled, single-minded, focused, and all because of him, for him. It pleased him to watch her, and it pleased him to feel how much she belonged here.

He did not join her in the back of his library, but he knew exactly where she was going, and so his gaze followed her movements while he stayed near the table where she worked. A stack of books on Transfiguration rested precariously over the edge, only because there was not enough room for them among the first-person accounts of magical experimentation and consequences, texts on alchemy and other quests for immortality, and books on defensive magic that she must have removed from their shelves when she decided to fight his battles at his side.

She came back with a different kind of book altogether, bound in black leather and hinged in tarnished silver. Hermione flipped through the pages, muttering to herself as she did so. Voldemort parted his lips and tasted her barely restrained eagerness and the heat rush of adrenaline. She tried so hard to hold herself back; he wished she understood the futility of denying how well she fit into the world she once privately swore to subvert. His world – with the sole exception of her blood, but that could be fixed, as Voldemort knew better than anyone – fit her like a glove. Hermione could not run from it too much longer.

Voldemort had many things in his life that made him proud; many of them had come tumbling down around him in the last two years. Hermione, on the other hand, he could put her on a pedestal as one of his best accomplishments. Some might think that Hermione was his biggest mistake. Narrow-minded fools, if they could not see her as he did.

It galled him, however, that he had to be weak enough for her to be his success. He looked down at her as she searched the book. As her eyes passed over the spells, the familiarity was unmistakable. She knew these spells and curses, and it drained all color from her face. But when she looked up at him, her eyes were clear and bright as stolen marbles.

"You'll need new robes," Hermione said, setting the book on the one empty place on the table, the place where she took her notes.

She lifted her wand and brought it to the top fastenings, ripping his robes from top to bottom and leaving his skin unscathed. Her wand hesitated only a little when she reached his waist. His trousers were burnt as well, revealing pieces of his patched flesh. She had never seen him naked in the light. She schooled her mind to stay professional, but it was a front even to herself.

Voldemort held himself still for her. He had already exposed everything – she had seen his worst vulnerabilities. His nudity did not even reach the same level to him as his weaknesses. A visage and form that inspired terror and disgust, it meant little to him except as a vessel. A vessel that now meant the world to him, for all that it had betrayed him.

The way it betrayed him now. It was strange how easily a man could grow accustomed to such a change, no matter how terrible. Still, that betrayal more than the exposure was what caused him shame.

Hermione bit her lip and closed her eyes for a few moments, then took a breath and set her wand in preparation for the countercurse.

"What I'd like to know is why Dumbledore knows this spell in the first place, if that's the book he found it in," Hermione murmured, with a touch of the old resentment.

"And you, to know the book of which you speak," Voldemort said. A smirk ghosted over his stony expression.

"You know why I read this book," Hermione said. "I can cure the burns, can't I?"

"Antidotes and poisons, is that it?" Voldemort said, tasting their old argument with amusement. "Surely that rings more hollow for you now."

Hermione gave him no answer, simply pressed the tip of her wand against the center of his chest. The whisper of her spell reached out in tendrils from his chest, filling him with warmth that was hard for him to find these winter days, no matter how many layers he wore. His white skin flushed a young, healthy pink for the seconds that it took the healing to take place. The painful patches smoothed out as new skin grew in its place. She touched one of the places where he began healing in order to feel the magic work under her fingers. His breathing became stertorous.

This time, instead of silence arising from the chaos of the battle, it was as though the almost silent hum of the books and the magic within them increased in volume so that Hermione could hear it. Whatever magic resided between these walls liked what was happening amongst it.

"I thought this was supposed to become less urgent," Voldemort said. He could not hide from Hermione, so he did not try. He had no dignity with her, and so he could not salvage it. He could only cling to the sure knowledge that she was as uncomfortable as he was. More, because this room made her moral conflicts resurface and reminded her of what he had done to her.

"You still have a couple days left in the month, and then it might need some time to taper off," Hermione replied a little breathlessly.

He swept his wand under her chin. He was not violent; he did not press.

"You shouldn't do any…" Hermione began.

"Just one more," Voldemort murmured.

He did not cut through the fabric like she had. He simply made the robes disappear. She would find them intact on her bed later. If he had to be weak in front of her, then he would put himself on a more even footing. That was what he told himself, and even he knew the lie, accustomed as he was to the art of artifice. His teeth clenched, but he gently took her wand and placed it with his on top of the black and silver spell book.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to use magic unless you have to?" Hermione asked softly. She stared determinedly at his face instead of the rest of him, in part to try to maintain her own dignity and spare his a little as well. But she could not stop herself from swaying toward him, just slightly, just enough.

Every time. Every time his body wanted her, she wanted him back, and it was somehow both his simultaneous victory and defeat.

He presented her with his empty hands. "I have discarded my wand. What mischief could I possibly get into now?"

"Oh, where do I begin?" Hermione said. She licked her lips and smiled.

Voldemort wrapped his hands over her shoulders and pushed her back with him, until her back hit the shelves. They were strong and solid, and it would take more than her and his weight against them to topple them over. Besides, the books on those shelves were quite happy with the witch and wizard so close to them. Hermione felt the magic seeping out of the leather binding in a hum over her Dark Mark and over the Medicus ink over her back, circling around her wrists like his fingers. But they could not hold her there, nor did they want to. They just wanted to encourage her.

Hermione's heart began to race, and she arched against him, clutching the shelf pressing against the back of her thighs. She was disheveled, dirty, and still needed to wash the blood from her hair, but Voldemort did not seem to see any of that. The sharp crimson of his eyes grew warmer, somehow darker, almost burgundy. Over the past week, it had been him in the night, in the darkness, in his bed, as though it were easier for Voldemort to pretend she was not there.

But as much as she wished she hadn't needed to help him in this way to begin with, she had never pretended he was anyone else but himself. Who else was she supposed to pretend was in bed with her? The Death Eaters who had tortured her in their own unique ways? And who was Voldemort supposed to pretend was in bed with him, when he detested any sort of sexual weakness?

So she had come to his bed, and he had lost himself inside of her until he could no longer continue, until he exhausted himself, every time. With the end of the month approaching, Hermione had thought that if Voldemort had more access, more chances to slake his need, he would not need it as often or as much.

That had not been the case. Hermione theorized it could have been because he held it back the rest of the month, but there was really no way to know until the mating behavior ended and then returned next year.

_If_ the behavior ended. Hermione could not ignore the possibility that this could also be the culmination of years of magical self-denial that was breaking down in the same way as his tangle of transfiguration spells. It was less likely, but it was certainly possible. She would need to do another assessment. Not now.

Voldemort pressed his cool hand to her forehead and leaned her head back against the book spines. "Shall we begin with the way you saved Harry from me by nearly killing him?"

"I needed to stop him from getting to you," Hermione replied. Voldemort bent down to lick a path up her neck. "I had to improvise. It was the first thing I thought of."

"Interesting that the first thing you thought of, with your unique grasp on intuitive magic, was something that you unconsciously knew would end in great pain," Voldemort murmured in her ear. He knew how deeply his voice could reach her there.

Hermione closed her hand over his throat, thumb and forefinger pressing down under his jaw, and she pulled his head down to press her lips against his.

Since the first night, Voldemort had done little to dissuade her from fulfilling the whole of her Medicus duties. He accepted her presence in his bed, took out his anger in ways that gave her pleasure and in ways that satisfied him without crossing the lines of his contract with her. He never even wanted to cross that line.

But since she no longer had to coax him into giving into his body's needs, she had not kissed him again – he had kissed her, yes, and she kissed back, but she had let him direct their actions to his needs alone, because she only wanted to fill those needs.

This time, she kissed him, one hand gripping the shelf until her knuckles whitened, his quicker pulse at her fingertips. He was above her, against her, surrounding her, and yet he was the one who groaned. He breathed her in, tasting her over his tongue before she tasted him. He could try to assert his control over her all he liked, but these were the only times he ever could enjoy the control she had over him. For these brief moments, Voldemort was enthralled with her, at her mercy. And now she wanted to kiss him for it.

While she felt heat low in her abdomen, she could not blame her own desire on his anymore. His desire had not abated, but her sharing of it had.

Perhaps he felt the change, and that was why he seemed to slowly freeze, until her lips just brushed against his mouth. He shuddered as she flicked his thin lower lip with the tip of her tongue.

"And your first impulse, Hermione, seems to be fatal," Voldemort said.

"He didn't die," she replied.

"Because you threw his broken body back and let him fall," Voldemort whispered.

"To save you."

"To save him," Voldemort countered, but he did not sound angry. On the contrary, he stroked her forehead and hair, and he pressed his lower body against hers, slow undulations that she met with her own. The urgency may still be there, but it was not so urgent that he had to take her immediately, take her just to finish. He rather liked what he saw in her, felt in her, now that he could take things slowly.

"I can do both," Hermione said.

"And what if they hadn't caught him?" Voldemort asked. His hand slid between her legs, curling his fingers to make her gasp. "What if you were the one who killed the Boy Who Lived and not me?"

"You know very well that wasn't going to happen," Hermione said. She used wandless magic to raise herself up until they were eye-to-eye. The hand she used to hold him by the throat smoothed over the base of his skull. "I couldn't care less if Dumbledore had fallen into that pit, but it's going to be you and Harry in the end."

"As pleasing as it is to hear you wish death on the old fool, he represents the forces you wish to defeat me. Without their general, they would be much more easily destroyed," Voldemort said.

"Why does he even bother to attack you at all?" Hermione asked angrily. "If he knows that the fight will come down to whether you kill Harry or Harry kills you, why does anyone waste their time?"

"To keep me from killing anyone else," Voldemort answered, smiling against her cheek. He could play her better when she was angry, because it brought a flush to all the places she was sensitive. She wrapped herself around him and made him swallow back his urge to just thrust up and finish with nothing but their physical bodies, quiet and empty and furious. Then he would have to look in her eyes after she had conquered him, after his body had failed him once again. He could not close his eyes and turn around into sleep like he had before.

In this small house of knowledge, amongst these books that so eagerly pushed them together as they did, he wanted to look into her eyes and drink her reactions when he brought _her_ down. Whether she showed him her shame or whether she stared at him with her own satisfaction or exultation at what she had wrought from him … that would please him. Perhaps that was the secret to why he wasn't pulling her back through the fire and into his dark bedroom. He could drown less in his own humiliation and revel instead in what Hermione had become. Because of him. For him. Even if it was not what he had originally intended. Voldemort had made mistakes – he could not deny them any longer – but Hermione was his best mistake, and she still did not know all that he had done to her.

"Would you kill Dumbledore if it meant saving me?" Voldemort asked, his lips light against hers. His hands slid over her arms and to her wrists, pushing them against the bindings. He felt the magic return to wrap around her wrists, then curling around his, in a thin, invisible embrace.

Hermione bit her lip. His thigh took the place of his hand. She could not stop herself from riding it and welcoming his reciprocation, not with the low hum all through her, from the wound on the crown of her head out to her fingertips. She shivered and leaned in to kiss him more fully. He kept himself back, hungry for her answer that he already knew.

"Yes," she said softly.

"Violently?"

"If necessary," she said.

"Gladly?" Voldemort asked, tightening his grip on her wrists. Dumbledore was Voldemort's opponent, and that war between them was sometimes personal, a vendetta from his childhood that had matured with age. But Dumbledore was also the silent partner to the torture that Voldemort and his followers inflicted on her. If Voldemort had to be betrayed by himself, he wanted to her to admit that she felt at least equally betrayed. It would bring her even closer; it would remind her why she belonged to him.

Hermione shuddered. She knew the answer Voldemort wanted. She knew her answer was the one he wanted. But saying it would be its own kind of spell, especially in a place like this. Hermione didn't want it to be true. However, it was a bit late to start balking now, after everything she had sacrificed and all the ways Voldemort exposed every tender nerve. He was doing that in a less symbolic way right at that moment, biting gently up the curve of her jaw and pulling at her wrists every time she tried to meet his mouth or move over him.

"Tell me, and I'll give you what you want," Voldemort said.

"What you want," she retorted.

"Hermione, I don't have to be a Legilimens to know what you want right now," he said.

"And _you_ need it."

Voldemort let the magic hold her wrists. It would not stop her if she wanted to move them, but even though he released her, she stayed as he positioned her. Her eyes were still bright, not glazed in pleasure, although he knew she felt it. Which meant that she chose to keep her hands bound. His kisses moved down her neck to her collarbone, then lower, teasing her. He was aware that any power he had over her was power that she allowed him, but it exhilarated him nonetheless.

"If it meant my protection, you would gladly kill Dumbledore, wouldn't you, Hermione?" Voldemort's hand closed around her throat, mirroring what she had done to him, before moving up to her chin. His thumb pressed against her lip, and he hissed when she licked him. "It would serve that meddling, defiling, cold-hearted bastard right if he died at your hand. He abandoned you, rejected you, believed that you were worthless to him, and then he gave you to me. If you had to kill him, can you honestly tell me the vengeance would not be sweet for you?"

The room swelled with the flutter of heavy pages and the whisper of hidden history. The magic waited, and Voldemort patiently coaxed shudders from her, his own desire lost in the process of breaking past those last few defenses, because it satisfied a different sort of need.

Hermione snapped her arms away from the books – which did nothing to remove their true hold from her – and wrapped them around Voldemort's neck. She wandlessly pushed them both across the floor, Voldemort's feet sliding over the stone until they reached the table, where she floated all the books off the table. She spun them around, slid her legs down over his hips, and leaned against the table. Then, without looking away from him – and he couldn't look away from her now – she took him and guided him in. His spine was a beautiful, shadowed curve as he bent over her and braced himself, gasping and clenching his fists to try to retain control.

"I won't kill him for you," Hermione replied, quieter than a whisper. "But if I have to kill him, yes, I would think it was a fitting end. Yes."

"Yesssss," Voldemort hissed, the word slipping into Parseltongue. She had no idea what he was saying, but that did not matter so much anymore. Nor did it matter after he put his mouth to better use, making her swear against the back of her hand.

When they finished, all angled limbs and heat that soon cooled from the sweat on their skin, Hermione did not let him pull away. She sat upright, and he hunched over her. Hermione stroked a line up his back to the delicate swell of his skull. There were things she wanted to say about who she was willing to kill for him, but now was not the time, not when he already thought he had achieved a small victory in his private humiliation.

Instead she left him with two sobering thoughts before she let him go.

"That did not seem like something you needed at all," Hermione said, her arms around him. "At least not in the same way as before. Get some new robes, but don't dress all the way. I need to evaluate the status of your magical body after the exertion of the battle, and I want to investigate some of the transfigurations and maybe modify or remove them if I can."

"What if it just makes the magical fraying worse?" Voldemort said.

It was a fair question, straightforward. He hid his fear well.

"At this point, Lord Voldemort, it is happening whether I do something or not. It's just that doing something has a better chance of saving you than if I just let it follow its natural course," Hermione said. She touched his cheek gently, although she had the grace not to show any tenderness in her expression. "You should see to your followers first. We can save the evaluation for tonight."

Now Hermione let him step back from her. He picked up his wand from the black and silver book on the floor and returned hers. She Summoned her cloak from her wardrobe – the cloak that he had given her to replace the one she burned. She did not need full robes if she was just going to soak in her bath. Hermione raised an eyebrow at him as he began to Summon robes for himself, and he clenched his teeth before ducking into his quarters to change without magic.

She put all the books back on the table, pulled on her cloak, and made to follow Voldemort out, then paused in the fire when she heard Wormtail.

"We r-received hard hits to the D-Death Eater forces, my lord," Wormtail explained. "I d-d-don't know how, but they seemed to know our p-plans. Do you think…?"

"It's perfectly clear, isn't it?" Voldemort snapped. "I can't blame Severus this time."

"The younger Death Eaters, my lord," Wormtail said. "They didn't s-s-s-seem to be as hurt as your first followers. What does that mean?"

"It depends on how clever the spy is," Voldemort muttered. "Tell my followers to meet in the Great Hall, to rest and eat and bolster their strength. There is still work to be done, more victories to plan, better victories. Go."

"B-but the spy…" Wormtail began.

"Go."

Wormtail did not need to be told a third time. The second order had been laced with barely restrained fury. Hermione came out of the fire at the sound of the closed door. Voldemort stood fully dressed near his hearth. He peered at her from narrowed eyes until she built the fire higher for him. He gripped his wand, the tip pointing at the floor as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I had to use magic to clothe myself in time," Voldemort said.

"I understand," Hermione replied.

"How much of that did you hear?" he asked.

"Do you mean the part about one of your Death Eaters feeding the Order information about strategy?" Hermione asked.

"I know the Black Dogs and the Cat's Paws that are not completely faithful to me, but a traitor among their number could not do the damage of a traitor among the Death Eaters. And one I do not know," Voldemort said, pacing. "How could I not know? How could they slip past me so easily, when I should have known what to look for, when I should have seen it in their thoughts? Was it because I was too distracted?!"

Voldemort slid a poker from its place and threw it against the wall in lieu of a curse. It planted itself into the plaster.

"Maybe you just haven't been looking closely enough, complacent with their loyalty," Hermione said. "It was one thing when they were resentful of me and wary of your illness. That isn't outright betrayal. That's just doubt. Betrayal goes deeper, and you might not have been looking for it."

Voldemort calmed down a little, but he did not stop pacing. "A mistake I will soon rectify. This one is either a very stupid spy or a very smart one. He could have spared the younger Death Eaters because he has a connection with them and wanted them less injured in return for his information, or he could be one of the younger members himself and sought to keep himself as unharmed as possible by his compatriots. Either way, I have my suspicions. But they must not know that I have them," he said, relaxing himself further. He gradually stopped pacing.

"Whoever the traitor is will wish for death by the time I am through with him," Voldemort murmured.

"Or you could have Bellatrix and Rodolphus ensure that they wish for death," Hermione suggested. She held up her hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I have to say it. It would preserve your magic and your most faithful servants could do what they love to do. I'm sure Bellatrix would have a few choice curses for the one who led to her injuries from the last battle."

Voldemort glared at her, but her advice was sound, and it would not call attention to his abstinence from magic. He nodded, then turned to take his leave to go to his followers. Hermione wrapped the cloak more tightly around her and left his room for her bath.

There was another traitor among Lord Voldemort's closest disciples. Hermione was torn between a glimmer of hope and a greater, sinking dread.


	22. Chapter Twenty-two

**Author's Note: **We're headed into the final stretch, folks. One more chapter and an epilogue are in order, I believe. Thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta, Bean.

**Chapter 22**

_Voldemort turns her around, pressing his forehead against the softness of her hair as his fingers work at the buttons down her robes. He wishes he could use his wand, but he heeds Hermione's demand that he remain as magicless as possible within his quarters. Voldemort follows that demand diligently now. _

After Hermione finished her assessment, she did not immediately withdraw her hands like she had in the past. Her palms smoothed against his chest as she bowed her head and kept her eyes closed.

Voldemort knew what she found. When she was inside him, his mind was open to her and she made sure to keep hers open to him. It embarrassed her less than it used to, but his humiliation at such exposure still had not faded, even if the dynamic between them had changed.

At first, Voldemort simply laid there, his arms tight against his sides. He loathed every second of the invasion; that had not changed. He recognized the necessity, of course, so he didn't protest anymore, but he still despised the procedure.

He doubted he would despise it less even if Hermione had found something more promising. They had both observed the spreading decay within the course of a few weeks – since the last assessment following the third battle – and the unraveling, fraying threads binding together his physical and magical bodies.

At this point, neither of them was surprised. Hermione thought he might have known longer than she did, that he somehow knew even before he sent in a request to the Medicus Order, and maybe that was the reason why he had in the first place. By a less intelligent man's reckoning, Hermione had failed the task he set for her.

But no matter how he skewed the data, he came to the same conclusion every time: The disease and decay started eating away at him before he ever contacted the Medicus Order, and Hermione's mind and her persistence made her the perfect Medicus for him. She had done everything she possibly could. Anything she did to exacerbate the condition while she tried to cure it didn't mean she caused it. She had not failed.

Lord Voldemort had failed.

_Her robes spread open to reveal the expanse of her back. Voldemort doesn't slide the sleeves down her arms yet. He traces the lines of the Medicus seal, over the ripple of her spine all the way down to its base. As he salutes the back of her neck, Hermione's breath hitches. She moves one of the hands holding the front of her robes against her chest up to guide his lips to hers. _

_They begin slowly, as slowly as he wants, but she soon presses for more, and he acquiesces. That kind of invasion he welcomes, and the passion it represents. _

_He strips her robes off her then, like a serpent shedding its skin._

Frantic knocking at the door jolted them out of their respective thoughts. Hermione was fully clothed, but Voldemort stood from the bed and picked up his robes.

"Carmen," he said to Hermione. "You may let him in."

Hermione opened the door, and Carmen swooped in, grasping the front of his flying carpet. Bad news etched deeper, troubled lines into Carmen's face. He pulled himself short when he saw Voldemort pulling his robes over his shoulders and doing up the fastenings the slow way.

"Did I interrupt—?" he began. He looked between Hermione and Voldemort, took in Voldemort's state of undress and her impeccable uniform. Carmen displayed chagrin rather than smugness, which testified further to the gravity of whatever news he brought. Hermione felt like she had swallowed a cold stone weighing heavy in her stomach.

"No, no, Carmen, nothing like that," Hermione replied, locking the door behind him. "Medical evaluation only."

"What do you need?" Voldemort asked. Carmen was one of only two Death Eaters Voldemort permitted to see him without his robes, appearing vulnerable, since he had seen Voldemort like that before. But Voldemort did not hide his impatience with Carmen's easy distraction.

"I'm sorry, my lord." Carmen swallowed. "Bellatrix and Rodolphus are dead. And so are Avery and Nott. Murdered in their sleep."

Voldemort paused in the act of buttoning his robes, his fingers posed like frozen spiders against the dark velvet. Then he continued, completing his task before pulling his wand out from the sheath up his sleeve.

"Show me," he said.

"There are no marks, no signs of torture, my lord," Carmen said. "I could show you the bodies, but there's nothing to show. It was the Killing Curse, untraceable."

"Executions," Voldemort said, clenching his fist around his wand. "From within."

"You mean the traitor?" Carmen asked.

"What do you know about that?" Voldemort snapped.

"Everyone knows by now, my lord," Carmen said, trying to placate him. Carmen, by his very ostentatious nature, could not melt into the woodwork or make himself small or scarce very easily, but it almost amused Hermione to watch him try.

Unfortunately, the deaths of four of Voldemort's most prominent and loyal Death Eaters meant that any potential amusement collapsed under creeping, numbing fear. If the traitor felt secure enough to attack Death Eaters within the fortress itself, then Hermione thought it might be time to implement a new Medicus duty that she had previously used only on the battlefield: bodyguard.

_Or traitors_, she thought, because Hermione didn't believe one person could have killed those four, not even in their sleep, especially Bellatrix and Rodolphus, who did not sleep alone.

"I should cut out Wormtail's tongue for telling," Voldemort said. He swept past Carmen's carpet. Carmen grasped his shoulder, and Voldemort reacted predictably, wrenching away. Remembering who he was trying to stop, Carmen jerked his hand back.

"Draco was the one who informed Wormtail of the possibility, and if Wormtail hadn't told you, Lucius would have," Carmen explained. "I wouldn't care if you ripped his tongue out of his head, but there are so many more reasons to do so without punishing him for an insufficiency he doesn't have."

"Voldemort," Hermione said. She came up behind him and touched his arm lightly, just to alert him to her presence. She need not have bothered. If the Dark Mark did not tell him how near she was, then the additional binding between them – enhanced by the recent assessment – would have. "There aren't many secrets in a place like this, even fewer since they can't leave like they used to. Remember how hard it was to keep secrets back at Hogwarts?"

"For _other_ people to keep secrets," Voldemort corrected, but some of the tension drained out of him. Hermione suspected that his reaction came from the results of the evaluation, the crippling loss of crucial supporters to his cause, and the insult of a spy among his Death Eaters more than any real malice toward Wormtail. He had never told Wormtail not to spread the information about the possibility of a traitor in their midst. However, the knowledge that someone worked against them from within only served as another piece of evidence that Voldemort was losing his touch. All the more reason for Voldemort to snuff out the traitor before he or she did any more damage.

Not that it would make much difference in the end. Hermione and Voldemort knew the helplessness of futility well.

But they also knew how to keep secrets.

_The fire before them blazes high. Even though winter still rages outside the fortress, Hermione's skin glistens with sweat from the heat. The skin under his robes stays smooth and dry. Voldemort licks a line up her spine and tastes salt. Her breath hitches. She tries to face him, but he stops her, wrapping his hand around her wrist._

"_No," he whispers. He pulls his unfastened robes to the sides like black wings, drapes them over the arms of the chair, and pulls Hermione down. His arousal nudges her leg, and he moans as she addresses it._

_She leans back to rest her head against the back of the chair next to his. His eyes gleam, like blood spilled on marble. He cannot quite meet her gaze, instead staring into the blaze. He clenches his jaw. Nevertheless, he releases his hold on her wrist and slides his palm instead over her thigh, each pass higher than the last._

_Hermione kisses him first, sensing his hesitation. His pleasure is even more evident to her when she withdraws. He pants, uneven rhythm with a trace of anger. Never at her anymore. There's nothing left to hate her for._

The Death Eaters buried the bodies. Most bodies left over in the fortress were cremated; then again, the dead they usually threw away came from bodies they believed worthless. Any other dead fertilized the battlefields and attack sites. The fortress had never needed a cemetery before.

No one said any words over the graves. Voldemort had no respect for death, and so any care that the Death Eaters carried for the dead would be given after Voldemort left. He oversaw the interment, however, his body like a snake coiled to strike as he supervised the lowering of the caskets. He met the eyes of none of his followers, but they were fools if they believed he did not observe them. His presence thrummed through their Dark Marks with shallow Legilimency. Whoever had committed the crime either covered their tracks or schooled their thoughts well enough to hide their involvement from Voldemort's prying mind.

Hermione paid no attention to the graves of Avery and Nott. She welcomed the rot coming to them, a maggot for every child they killed.

She should have felt the same way about Bellatrix and Rodolphus, who deserved at least as many. But she remembered that, although they believed in the importance of blood purity and although Bellatrix had jealously contributed to her torment nine years ago, the Lestranges had been some of the first Death Eaters to welcome her as a Medicus, regardless of her bloodline.

There was no love lost for Bellatrix or her husband, but Hermione at least spared them a few minutes of her time, staring at the temporary headstones erected in their honor. They would have wanted to be buried in the family plot, but that simply wasn't possible at this point. Perhaps when this whole mess was finished – one way or the other – their wishes would be honored.

When Hermione turned away from the Lestranges' graves, she found herself face-to-face with Lucius and Draco. Their expressions seemed strangely solemn to her until she remembered that Bellatrix and Rodolphus were part of the Black family tree, too.

"What are they to you, _Medicus_?" Lucius spat quietly, advancing to force her aside. Hermione had the impression that he used "Medicus" as a substitute for another appellation entirely.

"More than you," she replied.

Draco grabbed his father's outer winter robes to keep him from confronting her. He did not quite succeed. Lucius whirled around and closed his hand around the back of her neck, not hard enough to hurt, but it threatened her enough that she drew her wand on him.

She literally bit her tongue against the Unforgiveable that begged to escape. She didn't want to do that again, not here, not with Voldemort watching them with a kind of curious bemusement. He did not fear for her well-being; she could punish Lucius faster and more efficiently than Lucius could attack her.

"I know what you're trying to do," Lucius hissed. A glint of grieving madness in his gaze alarmed Hermione, and she tightened her grip on her wand. "If the Dark Lord remains blind to it, then _I_ will take measures against your treachery."

"You think I did this?" Hermione asked in disbelief.

"You infiltrated the very center of our organization. You have the Dark Lord's complete trust and protection, all the more opportunity to take your revenge," Lucius said.

"Father," Draco tried to protest, but Lucius shook him off, then released Hermione.

"And why on Earth would I need to take my revenge, Lucius?" Hermione said. She lowered her voice to control her own mounting anger, but she widened her eyes with false innocence. "I cannot imagine why you, of all people, would believe _any_ of you deserve retribution."

"He may not be able to see what you are," Lucius hissed, "but I would never turn my back on you."

"If this were my revenge, Lucius," Hermione replied, "you'd be one of the bodies down there. Do you really think that if I were running about the fortress murdering Death Eaters that I would conveniently overlook you or Wormtail or perhaps the elder Crabbe and Goyle? If this is the result of a personal vendetta, my aim seems to be a bit wide. And you know better than that, don't you?" The tip of her wand pressed against his cheek. It twitched from where Lucius ground his teeth. "I'm a better witch than that."

"You're a part of it," Lucius said, tilting his head away from her wand and composing himself. He straightened his robes and glanced nervously at the Dark Lord. "I don't know how yet, but _you_ are an author of this destruction, somehow."

Hermione lowered her wand when she recognized that the threat had passed. "Even if I wanted to, even if you and I both know I'm capable of it, you should remember that I _can't_. The only way I could kill them is if they had attacked me or the Dark Lord in their sleep. Bellatrix was good, but she wasn't that good, nor would she dream of attacking me when it would hurt him."

She backed away. Any of the remaining Death Eaters withdrew from her, more reluctant to interfere with her than Lucius.

"I suggest you look for your traitor elsewhere. I couldn't even if I wanted to," Hermione said. "And I don't want to."

"Why should we believe you?" Lucius called after her.

"I don't care if you believe me or not," Hermione replied.

As she turned, she caught the gaze of other Death Eaters. Carmen hovered high behind Macnair and Dolohov. Many of her peers and some of their younger counterparts gave her all the consideration, even deference, that they had withheld when she had been a pet. They used to ignore her or mock her, but if she wasn't mistaken, she thought she saw respect, amongst them and the older Death Eaters as well.

Lucius may harbor suspicions against her, but Hermione guessed she had proven herself enough for them. If they couldn't respect her for her blood, they respected her ability, maybe even her loyalty.

Before she headed back up to the fortress, she caught Wormtail's eyes, in the back between the elder and the younger Death Eaters, his presence as grudgingly accepted as always. He could only maintain eye contact for a few seconds before hunching over again.

Hermione trudged through the snow behind Voldemort, boots crunching violently with each step. Almost all of the Death Eaters surrounded the graves to pay their respects, and almost all of them knew that one of their presumably loyal comrades had slaughtered their brethren. Suspicions were high. Hermione counted herself fortunate that only one Death Eater suspected her, easy as she was to suspect.

She had her own suspicions, so she would keep up her guard.

Ahead of her, Voldemort's left hand closed around the base of his wand, ready for any attack, and Hermione protected his back.

"_This hasn't subsided," Hermione murmurs._

"_It has subsided." He wishes he never said it, wishes he could have left the silence between them. Then they could pretend that the way he touches her – feverish in spite of the coolness of his fingers – comes from nothing but his magic gone wrong. They could pretend that this is nothing but a snake's winter urge to mate and nothing more. But he cannot lie to himself, nor to his Medicus. It is just another curse fate has seen fit to cast upon him._

"_Then why are we still…?" _

_She says "we," and the word brushes over him like her breath on his neck before she licks at his pulse, draws determined, lingering life to the surface in a flush under her teeth. He senses her magic, an aura, an outline, a halo, as tangible to him as her skin. He senses it because he knows how magic feels as it slips through his fingers. _

_She shifts in his lap to face him, and he lets her, tries to take solace in the evidence of her own desire, because he would hate to be the only one in their dark sanctuary to need someone he shouldn't._

Hermione peered out her window, abandoning her laboratory experiments.

Most of the Death Eaters had already left the graveside. They reserved their limited compassion and grief for very few, if any. They would lose little sleep over the loss of their compatriots; what sleep eluded them would come from fear that the assassin would target them next.

An unlikely mourner remained. Wormtail stood to the side of the graves, staring at the headstones. The snow already covered the bottom halves, inclining down onto the freshly dug dirt mounds. He wore winter robes, but he must have also cast a Warming Charm to stay out for so long.

Wormtail harbored no affection for any of the four Death Eaters. Hermione magnified her vision to observe him more closely. Tears ran down his grooved, weak face, and his eyes were red. Breath billowed from his mouth in stuttered clouds in the cold air.

When he thought no one observed him, he stood straight, although his head was bowed. Among others, he still slouched over as though they would curse him or fling their usual verbal barbs his way. Hermione believed that his behavior was mere force of habit these days. No one liked him, of course. However, the elevation Voldemort offered him back when he rewarded Wormtail with her had solidified his place amongst the Death Eaters even more than cutting off his hand. The Death Eaters groused about him behind his back, but she honestly could not recall the last time she had seen him outright insulted to his face since she arrived.

Hermione considered going down to the gravesite to ask him whom he grieved for, but she contemplatively pulled the curtain back over the window. Wormtail wanted to be alone, and Hermione did not particularly want to talk to him either. Also, she thought she might know the answer to her question, and the last thing she wanted to do was mourn with him.

She walked away from the window, swallowing back the memory of fallen soldiers she valued far more than the four buried down the hill. She returned to the busy work she had assigned herself. In a few hours, the world outside the window would go dark, and Voldemort's call to her would thrum not through her Dark Mark but pool low in her abdomen. Even when Voldemort did not sleep, Hermione spent her nights either in his bed or in the library.

All this pointless work. Hermione threw down her pestle. It cracked, but she could fix that easily. She buried her hands in her hair and leaned against the table. The mice and lizards rustled in their partitioned cages as Nagini wrapped herself around the box.

Hermione wondered whether Voldemort had told her yet. Neither of them had said it aloud yet. Hermione doubted Parseltongue was any exception, although Hermione wouldn't be surprised if Nagini suspected, given how the milking had stopped.

If Nagini knew, she accepted the premise without outrage. Then again, Nagini was a snake, a predator. She wouldn't blame Hermione for nature taking its course.

_Because whatever charms Voldemort used to suppress any semblance of sexual desire had collapsed during one or more of Hermione's efforts to stop the fraying. Because the serpent inside of him may not need rut but the urge to mate had not yet completely gone. Because Hermione had cast some sort of spell during the permanent Medicus binding ceremony that stripped away his inhibitions._

_Excuse after excuse fill his mind and swell in his throat. All of them would be easier than the truth._

_The truth that he simply wants her, and she simply wants him. It had not always been this way, not exactly like this. But the elements pieced together over the years, and although Voldemort cannot pinpoint the exact moment it changed, he understood that the moment occurred prior to the new year. He may not have recognized it then, but hindsight provided him a sobering perspective of them both. He does not want to speak of it. Neither of them do. There are many things they do not say, but the silence cannot last much longer._

_That is why Hermione curls her arms around him and kisses him again, her consuming him, him consuming her, her flesh heated as she rubs against him. He recognizes her single-minded fervor, the way she tries to lose herself in the feelings stirred up by the frantic maelstrom of their meeting. _

_But neither of them truly manages to forget who they are, what they once were, and what their continued liaisons in the privacy of his quarters mean for each of them. It doesn't matter how fevered their desire, how sweet the pleasure in the places they tease and tantalize and try to resist. They never truly forget that as high as their passion brings them, they only have farther to fall because of it. _

At the long dining table, Hermione sat next to Voldemort at his right hand, with Carmen to her right, their usual arrangement when she joins their feasts. The attendants at this feast were more subdued, solemn, sullen, with the same distrust that made them avert their eyes in the corridors but avoid being alone.

She picked at her food. Voldemort's appetite remained particular as well, although it did not differ too much from previous feasts – he created the illusion of a more rounded diet but mostly ate the meat on his plate while sparing only a few bites for the rest. In the brighter light of the banquet hall in comparison to the more flattering light from his hearth, his already skeletal frame seemed gaunt, drawn, not just pale but tight and worn over the protrusions of his bones. And since Hermione would not allow him to expend his magic on a glamour just to appease his unique vanity, the Death Eaters could see for themselves the ravages of his self-made illness.

His power was still undeniable, but so was the disease.

Like his power, he made no effort to mask his fury as he peered from one Death Eater to the next, increasingly frustrated each time he met their eyes and found nothing but the expected questioning loyalty instead of any outright betrayal.

Voldemort had known about Severus's duplicity, used it against him and played Severus for a fool until Voldemort saw fit to cut his betrayal away. At that time, he had Hermione to toy with, a traitor of a different sort, and no longer needed Severus's services to amuse him.

If he had found his traitor in his own kind of assessment, he would have swiftly and mercilessly dealt justice, and the line between his brows would have smoothed out, his thin lips stretching into a terrible smile. But he remained troubled throughout the meal, and because he did, so did the rest of his followers, loyalists and traitors alike.

After the feast ended, Macnair stopped her before she could return to Voldemort's quarters. He still smiled as rakishly as ever, but it did not quite reach his eyes.

"The girls are still disappearing," Macnair murmured, just loudly enough for her to hear over the hum of hushed conversation in the corridor. "Did you inform our lord? Even if he doesn't care about the girls, he should care about what it signifies, especially in light of these new developments."

Hermione almost dismissed him by saying that was impossible, that she had taken care of it, but she curbed her tongue in time. If she hadn't, Macnair might have immediately made the connection between the missing girls and the only man on the premises she took care of. But then she realized what he was telling her.

"What do you mean, they're still disappearing?" Hermione asked. She had automatically assumed that Voldemort killed all the girls missing from the Harem.

"They're no longer disappearing one a night like before," Macnair replied. "Maybe the traitor knew someone had noticed. But even so, more have disappeared over the last month, more than usual, and I'm beginning to wonder whether even the usual may not represent our true … shall we call it turnover rate?"

"The Dark Lord didn't think it was pertinent at the time," Hermione lied. Macnair showed no signs of disbelief. "But if the traitor is behind it, I think he'll accept its relevance now."

"Good," Macnair said. "With everything as tense as it is, I would hate to lose my favorite toy."

"Just when I start to think you care…" Hermione said, but Macnair knew she wasn't serious. She'd believe Carmen cared if he came to her with this information. Macnair exuded the same charm, but lacked any capacity for empathy. He loved his knives more than the lives they took.

As Hermione locked Voldemort's door behind her, she said, "We've got another problem."

_She drowns against him, clutching at the smooth skin of his back. Her nails run over rough patches at the prominent ends of his shoulder blades, almost like the frostburn of Dumbledore's spell. Pieces of his skin flake off. Hermione tries to gentle her touch, but she doesn't think that Voldemort even notices. At this point, it is easy for him to ignore the way his skin peels away from the scales beneath._

_If he doesn't notice, then she will just hold him closer. Sometimes it seems like he peels away from her, that it doesn't matter how tightly she holds on – he just frays away, as tenuous to her reality plane as the pulses of magic that escape him like unstable radiation. _

_She should rejoice. The rest of the world beyond the walls of the fortress wish and pray for his ruin every morning and every night. While she once joined their number, Hermione has always been separate from them, and now she can't hold him tightly enough._

_When she sinks over him, she knows he cannot bury himself deep enough to escape, and she can't guarantee his life by giving him hers. There's no animal to sacrifice, no tattoo to invoke the gods, no charms, no talismans, nothing left to do._

_Nothing but take what pleasure is left and hold on as tightly as possible while she can. Hermione thinks that is why this continues. His pride frays with his magic, and there's no reason to hold himself above the rest when he has learned – finally – that his end will be the same._

"Are we going to talk about this?" Hermione said one evening.

She lay under his covers next to him, and the dark circles under her eyes told Voldemort how tired she was. He wasn't. But although her lips were soft and dark from his kisses and she was flushed down to her chest, and although their bodies slid against each other with no impediment, Voldemort did not need Legilimency to know she wasn't talking about their continued affair. The motives for that remained unspoken; the silence meant more than the explanation, and the explanation implicated them both.

Her gaze drifted down to his chest, where she placed her palms during her assessments. She had given him another that evening, and after, Voldemort told her that there was no need anymore. More and more symptoms manifested physically now, so the metaphysical assessments were no longer necessary. If the symptoms could be seen, there was nothing left to do, because the worst was already upon him.

Voldemort's controlling hold over his followers deteriorated every day. All he could do was punish them, but even the blind among his followers could sense the inevitability of his defeat.

The traitors became bolder, and his loyalists joined the other graves. The Cat's Paws and the Black Dogs diminished in number. Even a few more Death Eaters died, but not as many as Voldemort might have anticipated. He suspected that perhaps the population of traitors exceeded his followers now, even in the midst of those he once counted as his most loyal followers.

Voldemort had received another missive from Dumbledore for the next battle, this time accompanied with highly political and diplomatic language seeking a solution to this war, which told Voldemort that the last battle had hurt Dumbledore's side as much as his, although Potter still lived.

Voldemort had not yet returned the missive because he did not yet know whether he would survive another battle if his own followers turned around and fought for Dumbledore's side. Voldemort also wouldn't be surprised if Dumbledore sent him the additional note calling for an end to the violence because the traitors told him that Voldemort's disease was finally running its course. Dumbledore might be throwing him a line to save himself or save some of his more devoted followers, to rot in Azkaban the rest of their lives without execution.

What little pride Voldemort had salvaged refused to bow to Dumbledore's too amiable, too arrogantly merciful requests. He would never give that old man the satisfaction of Voldemort on his knees begging for mercy. There was only one person to whom he would ever kneel, and only because she knelt before him as well.

"No," he answered quietly.

"That was a rhetorical question, Lord Voldemort. If you're not going to talk, I will. It needs to be said, because unlike … this … we can no longer pretend the decay hasn't spread, and it's only a matter of time…"

"Hermione." He turned away from her to stand, but she curled her hand into the crook of his elbow and pulled him back down. Physically, she was now stronger than him. Although she did not pull too hard, he yielded nevertheless, hating every second he lowered himself beneath her. She sat up, unself-conscious of her nudity. She had lost that a long time ago. The context, however, had changed.

"I already know what is happening to me. I saw it through your eyes, through your magic. We do not need to talk about anything if there is nothing to be done," Voldemort said tonelessly.

"I'm trying to look for ways to cure your physical body if the magical body detaches. I've looked for ways to unite some kind of other magic to the cores, like a magical prosthesis. I'm sure Nagini would be more than willing, but it's only a theory at this point, and I'm not sure I have enough t-time." Hermione swallowed and commanded herself not to stutter again. That was a kind of weakness Voldemort never wanted from her.

Hermione wasn't the only one researching. Although Voldemort knew his personal library backwards and forwards, she sometimes woke up at night to an empty room, and she would duck into the library and find him poring through his books as though the third or fourth reading would yield some kind of eureka they never gave him before. Something to counter the damage that they helped contribute toward his present state. Sometimes she joined him.

The issue of his decay was academic, manifesting on his body in scales and dead patches. He seemed to be drying out, his skin a husk and his voice roughened from lack of moisture. His breathing sounded like wind shifting sand.

He still had his magic, and he used it while he could in bouts of temper against his Death Eaters, seeking for the origin of the betrayal and still coming up dry. He theorized that Severus and Dumbledore had their hands in the matter, teaching Occlumency to whoever started the quiet campaign against him, but that left him as clueless and furious as when he began.

"How long?" Voldemort asked. No worse curse had ever passed his lips, not even _Avada Kedavra_.

"The magic? Any day," Hermione replied.

The assessment that evening showed how the knots at his palms, chest, head, feet, and core had all untangled in the absence of the immortality spells and the transfigurations that hadn't seeped into his physical body. Hermione's attempts to cure him had merely exposed and accelerated the problem, but Voldemort could not deny his own culpability in the decay to both bodies. He was the one who had applied the spells that strained the connection between the two bodies in the first place.

Now, mere threads connected them, like a helium balloon loosely tied to a chair during a storm. It was only a matter of time before the magic, already leaking from him, released entirely. To leave nothing but a rapidly decaying body behind, a body endangered by the insidious transfigurations meant to remove any residual traces of his Muggle heritage. And when the magic left, he would be left worse than a Muggle, because he would know what he lost.

"You? We would have to see," Hermione added.

Voldemort's drawn expression tightened even more, a skull grimacing with perpetually morbid humor. "You are being overly kind, and you know I despise pity," he said. "You mean we need to see what the magic deigns to leave behind."

"You could live indefinitely," Hermione said, abandoning her impossible attempt to soften the blow. "You could live an average life span of a Muggle or a wizard. But the decay poses a threat, especially if magic exacerbates it. We would be limited to Muggle pharmaceuticals and homeopathic remedies, but their only cure for decay is amputation, and I can't do that."

Because the decay was everywhere. She might as well ask Macnair to draw and quarter, then dissect him. Or…

Voldemort stopped that thought as it started. All his life he had not allowed himself to entertain the thought, worked to avoid and eliminate the eventuality. Even with the impending, inevitable end he had fought against, he couldn't think about quickening it. _Not yet._

"My duties as a Medicus included situations like this before I came here," Hermione said. She crossed her legs, and her knee brushed against his ribs. "But my clients weren't like you. I need to know, Voldemort, what it is you want me to do for you. What do you need from me?"

She could protect him against any who sought to cause him harm. She could try to make him as comfortable as possible when the time came that magic no longer worked on his body in the right way. But she asked because she didn't know what he needed after that.

And he didn't either. That point in his future remained as blank as it ever had been, because it was supposed to be impossible.

_He buries his mouth into the hollow under her jaw, breathing her in. Her scent and strength overwhelms his senses. She surrounds him in every sense of the word, and he clings to her as though her offering will pass some of that strength to him by sheer force of will._

_Hermione makes no effort to muffle her cries – the walls are charmed against all kinds of screams. She tosses her head back, tightening her hold around him. He jerks and fists his hand in her hair as he pulls her down over him. _

_Their moment of connection and completion fades too quickly; unspeakable power fades to unspeakable weakness. She lowers her head to his shoulder. Her fingertips press against the places where his skin has gone numb, semi-consciously testing them. Voldemort continues to stroke down her spine, remembering what she was and what she is, realizes that is what she has been all the time – the only reason he ever cared about the direction of her fate at all._

_Years invested into breaking her, and Hermione, not Voldemort, rises above the wizarding world that despises what it should admire. She holds together the broken remnants of a Dark Lord Who Lived._

_Avoiding his Death Eaters, he has had plenty of time to consider her question about what she needs to do for him. He left her the answer in a vellum envelope on the library table. He told her to open it when it was time; she would know. _

_He hopes that time doesn't come as soon as he thinks it will, as soon as he _feels_ it will. And he does feel the decay now, more than just the diffuse malaise of the last few years. The disease eats away inside him. He is used to pain; it's not the pain that he fears._

_Voldemort caresses her cheek, and Hermione lifts her head. Her eyes seem dark in the shadow. He admires her resolute stoicism. He knows what he looks like when reality returns to them._

_He whispers, "I'm dying."_


	23. Chapter Twenty-three

**Author's Notes: **Thanks to my fantastic beta, Bean, for going over my chapters and helping to make Ascent better every time.

v888v

**Chapter 23**

Hermione couldn't very well sit in on one of the feasts and ask each of the Death Eaters confidentially whether they were the traitor – not that they held many "feasts" nowadays. On the occasions she left Voldemort's quarters for a breath of fresh air, she saw them huddled over their meal at the long table, subdued, suspicious, full of resentment and reconsidering their loyalties.

Already, the Cat's Paws and Black Dogs and the rest of his followers – the ones without a name – were escaping in discreet numbers. Once they realized Voldemort no longer punished them for their cowardice, they ran scared, even more terrified now that they were not punished. They were termites fleeing a dead tree, rats abandoning a sinking ship, but they did not always have a safe place to go. After all, they lived at the fortress precisely because they made their allegiance known.

The Death Eaters would be the last. They had more to lose, whether they stayed or left.

She couldn't ask them who the traitor was, but she was fairly certain how she could find out.

Every evening for the last week, she had cast a Disillusionment spell and hid in the corner of the Harem in one of the empty beds, where no one had cause to notice her. Macnair was right – there were more of them than there used to be. Housebound as most of Voldemort's followers were, and with all the deserters, they were not able to replenish the Harem population at the same rate as in the past.

The traitors obviously kept an eye on when other Death Eaters came in to sample the wares, or else Macnair would have already discovered who they were – if it even bothered him enough yet that someone took away his playthings. Hermione doubted that Macnair was the traitor; she wouldn't be surprised if he were, instead, a target, a member of the old guard still undeniably loyal to Voldemort. After all, Voldemort let him have his Muggles and his animals and his women, and his partners were already dead. He kept his wand and his ax always near his side in the dining hall.

Hermione tried to ignore the sounds around her and checked the edges of her Disillusion periodically, thankful that there were so few women around her. They mostly congregated near the doors. Many of the women that remained were the ones eager to stay, the ones that willingly joined the Harem the way women joined the Cat's Paws. Hermione thought the ratio of unwilling women had gone down, so if the traitors were responsible for them disappearing – as opposed to someone systematically killing them like Voldemort, and Hermione knew it wasn't him this time – it might mean that the traitors were only rescuing the ones that wanted to be rescued.

She welcomed this new development, and she would do nothing to hinder the traitor or traitors. She just wanted to know who they were.

A Medicus never knew when she might need one.

Hermione lay on her stomach with her wand pointing out between the curtains in case anyone approached, and she almost nodded off. She wasn't getting a lot of sleep lately, and it wasn't because she had more pleasant things to do anymore.

Of course, _that_ had been bittersweet at best, once she accepted it and he choose to continue. The latter more than the former determined the course of their encounters. It still gave him no pride, but it pleased her that he trusted her enough to continue their unorthodox liaison. In secret, yes, but neither of them would have it any other way. Carmen knew, but if anyone else did, they would consider it the same weakness that Voldemort believed it to be. Voldemort hadn't wanted that additional perception of weakness. Hermione simply hadn't wanted to kill anyone who tried to attack them due to that perceived weakness. All significant aspects of their Medicus/client relationship had always been private, as ethics, common sense, and preferences often demanded.

But these days, those evenings in firelight – holding him tightly to her and within, as though she could shield him from what ate at him from the inside out – had dwindled by necessity.

Other things kept her awake at night.

Hermione's forehead hit her clasped hands, and she jerked back up, blinking and shaking her head. The double doors swung open. In came a handful of the young Death Eaters, three whom Hermione did not recognize, as well as Draco and Blaise. The willing women swarmed them. Blaise was flirtatious as he always was, cool and smooth. He led one of them to a bed, but Draco swept past and headed to one of the beds where a girl sat, looking warily up at him. The other three split, one accepting the overtures of a willing woman while the two remaining double-teamed a girl waiting in the wings.

It was funny, though, because Blaise and the younger Death Eater stayed with their more willing victims. But after some basic petting and pawing, Draco and the other two younger Death Eaters took the girls out of the Harem. Presumably for a more private show in their quarters, but it intrigued her nonetheless.

Maintaining the Disillusionment Charm, she slipped out of the bed and hurriedly followed them at a distance. The Disillusion didn't make her invisible like Harry's Invisibility Cloak. It just made her less noticeable. If she followed too closely, they would see her. It was fortunate she knew the dormitory wing of the fortress well.

Draco glanced up and down the corridor before opening the door to his quarters, ushering in his choice as well as the choice of his companions. Hermione darted forward as Draco headed in himself, and when she got a glimpse of their other visitor, she almost lost hold of the spell around her.

There was no way on Earth that Draco had voluntarily invited Wormtail to share the girls or watch. Lucius might get off to watching Hermione debase herself with Wormtail, but she doubted Draco shared those particular proclivities.

Nevertheless, Hermione leaned against the wall, slid down, and kept watch. Staring at a blank door was duller than waiting in a Harem. She wished she had some Energizing Elixir handy, but she decided against Summoning a bottle in case someone decided to follow it or the Death Eaters came out of the room just as it reached her hands.

As she suspected, about an hour later the two younger Death Eaters and Wormtail exited Draco's quarters, and Draco closed the door behind them. No sign of the two girls. All four Death Eaters' gazes darted about, their faces determinedly blank.

After a quick re-evaluation, Hermione scrambled up to follow Wormtail, loath as she was to do so.

She probably shouldn't have been as surprised as she was. The combination of her focus on Voldemort and her personal distaste for the man contributed to her prior assumptions, but now that she had actionable proof, the pieces all moved into place to form a more cohesive picture of the events since she arrived. His stutter hadn't improved and he still didn't meet anyone's eyes very long, but he seemed comparatively more assertive and at peace with himself, if not with the rest of the world around him. In spite of his callous murder of twelve Muggles in order to go into hiding and the murder of Cedric Diggory in order to raise the Dark Lord, he never developed a taste for torture, and he should never have survived the battles, more suited as he was to the guerilla warfare of years past.

She'd already suspected him after the burial, but perhaps she had not allowed herself to believe better of him, after having been subjected to his worst. Whether he betrayed Voldemort for altruistic or selfish reasons, he was still helping Harry's side. She should have known; like Severus, once a traitor, always a traitor. He fooled everyone back then. It didn't stretch the imagination to believe he could somehow fool everyone again now.

Wormtail slipped into his quarters, and Hermione abandoned her spell, pushing him further in and spelling the door shut behind her. Darkness enveloped them. Wormtail quickly lit the lamps and whirled around, his form firm and his hand steady even though his eyes widened in fear. Hermione met his wand with her own, ready to cast if she needed to.

"H-H-Hermione," Wormtail stammered. He didn't lower his wand. "What are you doing here?"

"You've either been helping the Harem girls out of the fortress or killing them and disposing of their bodies," Hermione said evenly.

"What do you w-w-want?" Wormtail asked, stalling as he inched to the left.

"Where do you think you're going?" she snapped. Hermione approached him, lifting her wand more threateningly, and he stopped moving. She peered into his eyes, which kept glancing away, but they always came back.

"Look, I couldn't care less if you're one of the traitors or whether you and Draco and the others are picking up where Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Macnair left off. I serve Voldemort, not his political agenda. I'd kill you if you tried to kill him, but undermining the foundation of his campaign means about as much to me as a Knut to a leprechaun. _Have you betrayed him_?"

She supposed her reassurances were a bit backhanded with the tip of her wand so close to his jugular. She could outspell or even overpower him if they fought, and he knew that perfectly well. She was Medicus to the Dark Lord and protected him in battle. She had to have exceptional reflexes. But Wormtail must have decided that the risk of not answering an angry Hermione outweighed the risk of answering her.

"Yes," he whispered.

"And you don't work alone."

"N-n-no."

"Draco and some of the younger Death Eaters are a part of it. Blaise. Any others?" she asked.

Wormtail lowered his wand and trembled, but he did not retreat from her. "M-most of the younger Death Eaters s-s-started talking about mutiny when V-Voldemort declared his illness through the Medicus petition. But D-D-Draco has been at odds with his father's beliefs for much longer, and h-h-h-he's been grooming his peers to b-betray the Dark Lord when it was time. H-he discovered my betrayal before you even arrived, perhaps recognizing a c-common g-goal."

Hermione forced herself to keep a stony exterior, but on the inside, she thought, _Way to go, Draco._

"N-n-not all of the rest have abandoned the D-Dark Lord's message, but m-m-more of them than you might th-think. None of the old guard. Except for m-me," Wormtail said.

"How long?" Hermione asked, pulling her wand back a little. She believed him.

"I-I d-don't understand."

"How long have you been a traitor against the Dark Lord?" Hermione clarified.

"For a f-f-few years before y-you came. I've been feeding the Order w-what information I could afford. Well, that's n-n-n-not entirely accurate. I've been feeding Harry Potter information," Wormtail said wryly. He held up his prosthetic hand. "It seems thirty pieces of silver does n-nothing to repay a life debt. And I have yet to repay it, nor the other l-l-lives I've t-taken."

"How do you know?" Hermione asked. She lowered her wand down to her thigh, but she kept her arm at the ready in case he decided to strike while she thought him less of a threat. It would be a mistake for him to attack her, but people were known to make such mistakes.

"H-how do I know when the life d-d-debt and the lives I owe are r-repaid?" Wormtail asked. "N-no matter how much Lucius calls attention to it, I forget that you're M-Muggle-born sometimes. I simply know. The scales are w-weighted against me. A life rescued does not equal a l-l-life taken."

"Yet you still try," Hermione muttered.

Slowly, Wormtail sheathed his wand again. The gesture was only symbolically diplomatic, but Hermione relaxed a little more anyway.

"F-for the rest of my life, if that's what it takes," Wormtail said. "H-however short that may be."

"Why?" That was the most important question of the evening. Wormtail turned to sit down in an armchair but thought better of it when Hermione tightened her grip on her wand. He eased back up and kept still, the way one might treat a spooked horse. He seemed sad, but resigned. She'd be fine if he felt that way the rest of his life for what he helped do to her.

_Then why do you mourn Voldemort's fall and condemn Wormtail?_ she asked herself.

The answer was that it wasn't that simple. She took Wormtail's persistent place in her past as a personal offense, a personalized hell. Like Voldemort, Wormtail's deeds had influenced who she was today. Hermione had found some kind of peace – or perhaps détente was the better word – with what Voldemort had done to her. She'd found strength in it, and Voldemort's deterioration, as terrible as Hermione saw it, still struck her as a form of karma. But nothing Wormtail did to her made her better. He just made her sick inside, and as things were going, he would outlive Voldemort.

"I w-wish I c-could say that my catalyst was a ch-change of heart, but it was j-j-just the weighing of my life debt upon me," Wormtail said. "L-l-like a conscience."

"How would you know what that feels like?" Hermione snapped.

"I know what g-guilt feels like," Wormtail said defensively, "I experience it too often for it to have much p-power over me anymore, which was why the w-w-weighing of the life debt s-s-surprised me. After a while, it d-d-disturbed my sleep, my digestion, my health, until it finally reached my mind and disrupted my thoughts. I thought I was going c-c-crazy until I heard the words more clearly, and then it all made sense. As soon as I found an o-opportunity, I escaped the f-fortress and offered prisoners of war in return for temporary clemency, and immediately the w-w-weight lifted enough for me to f-function … but it n-never leaves, and it has changed me. I d-don't ask for your f-forgiveness, Hermione. I couldn't ask that. But even though I belong neither here nor there, I d-don't think I've ever been freer since I first betrayed the Dark Lord."

"I don't forgive you," Hermione said. She fought against the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She didn't think she'd been alone with Wormtail like this since that evening, and it didn't matter that she held her wand and he didn't. She still looked up at him and felt like that girl again. He knew what she looked like under her clothes just by his gaze passing over her.

"As I said, I d-don't expect you to," Wormtail said. "But whether or not I can s-s-satisfy my debt to you, my debt to Harry is the most p-pressing. My l-life is his. He has given this worthless life meaning, even if I have to die for him before the debt is repaid."

Wormtail ducked his head. "You won't tell the Dark Lord, will you? My life is f-forfeit, but I don't want the o-others found out."

"I already told you I won't tell him anything about you or Draco or the others," Hermione said. "Although I'll know who to watch out for if any of them decide to do anything stupid against him."

Wormtail shook his head. "N-n-no, we already know that the D-Dark Lord is weakening. Y-y-you are our only obstacle, and w-we cannot attack you, so we wait. We're p-p-patient. The Dark Lord is getting worse, isn't he?"

Hermione said nothing. She merely backed toward the door until she could wrap her hand around the doorknob.

"I can't tell you to not tell the Order anything that you might or might not know," Hermione said. "But you cannot expect me to give you that information. Is there anything else _I_ need to know?"

Wormtail collapsed in his chair. Sweat shone on his forehead where the lamp hit his balding pate. "N-no. No, it's just Draco's compatriots and m-myself, and we're no threat to you or the Dark Lord. Everyone knows he's for Harry or Dumbledore, if it even comes down to that."

Before she left, and she was quite eager to do so, Hermione turned back to him. "At the gravesite, who were you crying for?"

Wormtail looked up from where he had buried his face in his hands in weariness. "I'm the only one of us left. Of my friends. And I-I'm the l-last one that needed to survive."

This time, when tears swam over her lower lids, she did nothing to stop them. "The last battle … Remus. That _was_ him."

"He d-died valiantly," Wormtail said.

"There's no consolation in that," Hermione replied.

Wormtail shrugged. "No, there isn't. He might think so, though. As I would, if the Order would let me die."

She knew that Harry still lived after the bad accident she'd dealt him, because if the last battle had killed him, everyone would know, and Voldemort might have won by virtue of everyone else's sheer despair. But she had one more friend to ask about.

"Peter."

Wormtail jerked up at the sound of his given name.

"Is Severus still alive?"

"Yes," Wormtail said.

Hermione made no effort to hide her relief. She leaned her head against the door and closed her eyes for a moment. The memory of the thin, dark-haired man lit with an emerald glow and falling out of the sky flashed in her mind.

"His recovery is taking longer than Harry's, but he's still alive," Wormtail informed her.

"Thank you," Hermione said. Before Wormtail could ask her why that was of such significance that she actually thanked _him_, Hermione slipped out of the room and shut Wormtail back in, grateful for the door between them. Her opinion of him had raised slightly higher than pond scum, but that didn't mean she wanted to linger.

Still, she might have use for a traitor.

v888v

Hermione returned to her quarters and went through their bathrooms to return to Voldemort's room.

The first thing that struck her was the smell. It was unpleasant only by association: the smell of dust and the subtle, sickly sweet scent of dying flesh emanating from where the open sores festered.

The room was stale and warm. Hermione had rearranged the room so that his bed was right next to the fireplace instead of on the other side of the room. Voldemort lay on the side closest to the high flames. He kept his hand on his wand, but it was mostly cold comfort. When he cast spells at her request, they only worked half the time now, and they sometimes sputtered out. Hermione didn't need to do one of her evaluations to know that the last threads of his magical body were unraveling, and it would untether soon. It could be weeks. It could be days. It could be hours.

When Hermione left him, she put up defenses to rival Hogwarts wards, supplementing the ones he originally set up himself. Now that she was back, she could dismantle some of them. One of them set off an alarm when anyone uninvited tried to enter the room, and it would wake her up before that person could take one step in. She'd not had to use it yet. Carmen always knocked.

He'd become the unofficial envoy between Voldemort and the rest of his followers, but Voldemort already knew that his political days were numbered, since he required an envoy in the first place. He required Carmen's presence less often on official business. So Carmen came of his own volition, silently playing chess like they had in the past. He never mentioned Voldemort's condition, and Voldemort never asked him what the Death Eaters whispered. They didn't need to ask questions to which they already knew the answer.

Carmen wasn't there at the moment. Voldemort had wrapped himself in his blankets and simply stared into the fire, his red eyes a little clouded as when a snake sheds its skin. He was a dark mass of blankets, a single white hand holding a wand in his lap, but Hermione knew what lay beneath, when he could stand the cold long enough for her to unwrap the layers around him.

Where the sores weren't seeping over the knobs of his skeletal body, there were whole stretches of his body where his skin had peeled away from smooth, light scales. Once his magical body floated away into the ether, he'd be left a permanently transfigured shell, half-man, half-snake. Already, his speech sometimes lapsed into Parseltongue without him noticing the difference.

With all his power stripped away, Voldemort was able to see what he'd really made of himself. That was the other reason he hid himself in his cocoon of blankets and shadow, because every time he looked down, his remains reminded him of his folly. He almost wished for the formlessness he had maintained for fourteen years after he tried to kill Harry Potter. Then, he had hope and will, and his power was still his.

Now his power had dwindled, his hope proved false, and his will meant very little without means. None of Hermione's potions worked on his sores. His body rejected most magic like oil sliding over water. She had to tend them the Muggle way, which meant cleaning the wounds, applying an antibiotic ointment, and redressing the bandages. The options were limited and useless. The wounds didn't heal any more than moisturizers banished the scales.

Hermione removed her robes. The heat was oppressive to her, so she reclined on top of the quilt on her side of the bed.

"Any change?" she asked.

"The fire started burning more on the left side than the right this afternoon," Voldemort said dryly.

"Exciting development," Hermione said.

"I thought you'd feel that way."

Nagini hissed sharply as she climbed to the foot of the bed, coiling into a mountain of a serpent near Voldemort's feet like a venomous cat.

"Nagini doesn't understand," Voldemort said, staring into the fire. "She keeps asking why I do not milk her. I tell her it will only kill me more quickly."

"I doubt it's death she doesn't understand," Hermione said.

"She doesn't understand why I can die when I haven't before. She believes that if I do not die from her bite, then I must be invincible. She doesn't comprehend this changed state, or why I smell like kin to her," Voldemort replied. His voice remained emotionless, as it always did when he mentioned his death.

Hermione did not outright encourage him to talk about it, since she knew he would shut down if she did, but she thought that, in spite of his numbness, his willingness to speak of it meant a lot. She'd been reluctant to say it herself, given Voldemort's history with the matter, but once he said it out loud, it broke the enforced silence between them.

Now, Hermione thought he brought it up himself to convince himself that it was going to happen. He didn't quite believe it yet, resigned to it though he was.

"Do you need anything? Do you feel like you can eat something tonight?" Hermione asked.

Voldemort shook his head. His appetite had been hit-and-miss, worse than usual. She would eventually have to make him eat, but they were not at that point yet.

He turned his gaze back to the fire, and Hermione closed her eyes. Although she saw Wormtail in the darkness behind her eyelids, she felt no fear. Instead, she mused on the other incidents in which she should have noticed something was different about him. Eight years was a long time. It was enough time for Wormtail and Draco to reject the Death Eaters. It was enough time for a Dark Lord to undo himself. It was enough time for a girl, who was just trying to help, to crawl out of hell and do just that in her own way – even if that meant helping the man who put her there in the first place.

"Is there anything left to do?" Voldemort asked. Hermione rested her chin on her arm and considered him.

"The only thing left that I can think of is taking away your magic, cutting away the few threads left," Hermione replied. "It would mean leaving the fortress, a new identity, going to a Muggle hospital for aid, as long as they didn't ask too many questions. You could possibly live the rest of your life as a Muggle, with a Muggle life span."

Voldemort curled his lip in contempt, but he did not forbid the measure outright, which told Hermione how desperate he was.

Hermione wished that made a difference. She kept her hands to herself; she neither reached out for him nor touched him.

"However, I think we're too late for that now," Hermione continued. "Removing the last vestiges of your magic would take away the source of the decay. But even if we took you to the best surgeon in the world, they could amputate your arms and your legs, but they can't amputate your head or your organs, and the physical decay has reached everywhere. Even so, releasing your magical body is still a possibility. I know how to get access to painkillers. Without the magic making it worse, I could make you more comfortable, and it would give you a little more time. But I think only a little."

Voldemort clenched his jaw, hollowing his cheeks. "I have endured greater pain than this."

"That doesn't mean you have to endure it now, my lord," Hermione said. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Just think about it. The magic you have left is only killing you faster, and it does you no good if you can't use it."

Voldemort's eyes seemed to grow darker as he hissed something at the fire. Nagini lifted her head.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't understand that," Hermione said lightly.

Voldemort clenched his eyes shut for a moment, his lips parted as though to loosen his tongue. He lowered his head and opened his eyes again, blood red slits. This time, Hermione slipped her hand into his, displacing the wand.

"I cannot leave this fortress. I am more vulnerable out there than I am in this room," Voldemort said.

"Have a little faith in my ability to protect you," Hermione replied. "Even if that just means hiding. That, at least, isn't arcane magic that's never been done before," she added wryly. She recognized the irony of asking Voldemort to trust in her abilities when she couldn't help him thus far.

"I am unsafe in and out of these walls, but I have no desire to live as a Muggle the rest of my days," Voldemort said. "A Muggle hospital is out of the question."

"I can bring supplies here," Hermione murmured. Voldemort's hand was dry, almost powdery. The grooves that lined most hands had smoothed out, as though the decay eroded them away.

"I would prefer that," he said. "When I can no longer stand it."

"There is no need to continue this pointless suffering. I know you don't seek self-punishment, so what exactly are you trying to prove?" Hermione asked. "It won't improve your condition, and the only people left for you to impress are myself and Carmen. Neither of us care, or else I wouldn't seek your opinion and Carmen would have already left."

"It is not a matter of pride—" Voldemort began.

"The hell it isn't," Hermione said. Voldemort tried to withdraw his hand, but Hermione tightened her grip. He winced, and Hermione abruptly dropped it. It was too easy to forget how frail he had become when he was being this hard-headed. "I recognize this kind of pride when I see it. Do you think that if you suffer long enough, it will make you stronger, like it has in the past?"

Voldemort said nothing.

"That's not how it always works." Hermione wanted to yell at him, but she forced herself to keep her voice down. "There comes a point when you can't suffer your way into power, Voldemort, and the truth is that you didn't do that before, either. You just delayed the inevitable, which is happening now." She brushed her fingers against the juncture of his jaw, which would have been a tender gesture if it weren't for the open wound near her fingertips. "Your suffering cripples you. Let me help you. You have _nothing_ left to lose but your life, and I can make that a little better. That's something we Medicus do better than anyone. Please."

For the longest time, he remained silent. So much went through his head these days, very little of which he shared with her. Regrets? Reassessing his early spells to see if he'd erred in the execution rather than the whole concept of immortality? Cataloguing his crimes? Reconsidering his chosen path, his raison d'etre? Or was his mind a complete blank, the real traitor in their midst that made him into this weak creature?

"Do it quickly."

Voldemort unwrapped himself from the blankets. He shivered as he parted them. He wore no robes underneath. They would keep him warmer, but they were heavy and rasped on the sores. When the blankets became too much, he simply pushed them aside, but the robes were more difficult.

Hermione pressed her hand against his chest and concentrated, sinking into him like a cold bath. It was an easy matter to pass over him and slice the remains of the magical body, a scalpel against tiny threads. Voldemort saw through her eyes the ethereal but deadened light of the magic drifting toward the ceiling like a ghost. It wasn't even strong enough to pass through. It merely dissipated like fog. Then there was nothing left but the man beneath and around and within her, and she pulled out.

He guided her down, his skin shifting like tissue paper over his skeletal remains, meeting her lips with the last of his power. She shuddered and tried not to kiss him too hard or hold him too tightly. She certainly couldn't keep him there by her own will if he couldn't do the same.

v888v

Hermione stared down at him, shivering even though the fire under the mantel still raged as high as she could maintain it.

Voldemort no longer had the strength to hold the blankets around him. He lay under them, inadequate as they were. Hermione could barely tell that he was breathing, although she knew he was alive because his eyes moved rapidly under his thin, dark eyelids.

After the magic left him, he didn't stabilize like she thought he would. Instead, it was as if he gave up, as though yielding his magic was his act of suicide – or that once it was gone he saw no reason to keep fighting. After all, even when the Killing Curse rebounded back onto him twenty-five years ago, he'd still had his magic. Without his magic then, he would have died. Cutting his magic off now might as well have been the death sentence he had always feared … and he had asked her to cut those strings. He had nothing left to live for, nothing for which to continue his fight. He would never get his magic back, and therefore immortality was nothing but a memory, an impossible dream, the entire course of his charmed life leading to a charmless shell of a serpentine man dying painfully in his own freezing fortress.

Carmen slept in one of the armchairs across the room. Voldemort was never alone. His followers on the other side of the door were falling apart, according to Carmen. It was a quiet civil war. She hadn't told him who to watch out for, but apparently they considered Carmen little threat to them. There were no more burials, but plenty of dead.

When Voldemort awoke – for fewer and fewer hours during the day – Carmen spoke to him about the state of his followers. The soul behind those bright, fevered eyes remained keen. When Hermione went into him, she sensed that his body was failing but his mind was still relatively intact in spite of the decay within it.

_Give it time_, she thought angrily to herself.

His voice was a rasp and a cough. Hermione knew it pained Carmen to see his master – his friend – reduced to this, but she admired that he stayed when so many would have fled long ago, and so many already had. They didn't even know what had happened to him, and they fled.

Hermione appreciated the company, the scent of tobacco and vitality that still clung to the fabric of Carmen's clothes and his carpet. The rest of Voldemort's quarters stank of the decay, a rich earthy smell that had become intolerable, like dead trees and summer graves.

When she went into him, she also knew that the pain had reached intolerable levels, beyond his ability to stoically accept it. But he didn't even have the energy to scream. Sometimes he groaned, the sound of an old house settling, like a rusty hinge of a heavy, wooden coffin.

Hermione did as she promised and went through the Medicus Order to bring him painkillers. The fluids dripped steadily from an IV into his arm. She also had to feed him intravenously.

This morning, he tried to talk to her. For the first time, he could speak nothing but Parseltongue. She watched him struggle to speak English, but his slightly split tongue lisped in a series of hisses for ten whole minutes as Nagini stared, confused why he would speak to her while clearly addressing Hermione. Carmen stirred in his seat, and Hermione fought the impulse to share a significant glance with him, knowing how Voldemort would hate to be displaced, just like that, the second he could not communicate.

His hand flopped weakly on the coverlet. She sat down on the bed and put her hand in his. He tried to drag it closer, and she understood. Hermione pulled back the covers and went into him. Voldemort had only one thing to say to her.

_It is time._

At first, Hermione was confused, but then he sent her an image of the envelope in her room, and Hermione withdrew. She looked back at Carmen to make sure he was awake and could keep an eye on Voldemort. Then she rushed to the laboratory table, where the envelope was still unopened, untouched. She had set the wards just as strongly around her room as his.

The whisper of the parchment seemed too loud to her as she opened it.

_When the time comes, I need you to kill me, by whatever means necessary. _

_The library is yours. Protect it from those who will never appreciate its true value._

_I destroyed what I created. Save yourself. -V_

Hermione dropped the parchment on the table as though it sliced her fingers.

The Medicus Order accepted the judgment of its members when it came to terminal cases and the cause of death. It understood the importance of quality of life as well as quantity and when one overshadowed the other. She'd given hospice care to her last patient. He'd died on his own.

But Voldemort's death promised to come to him more slowly, minute by agonizing minute, with no hope of recovery and no will left to live – enough for a man who once wanted nothing less than living forever to _want_ to die.

Hermione returned to Voldemort's quarters in a haze. She felt like she had no feet, like her ankles were connected to some kind of dense cloud.

"Hermione?" Carmen asked hesitantly. He appeared concerned, wary at the way she stared back at him.

She pulled out her wand.

She could do this. For him.

"No!" Carmen shouted, but even with his carpet, Hermione was faster than he was. And she wanted it more than anything, meant it with every fiber of her being, hated him for making this a part of her – but it was what she needed to do, and as his Medicus, she could not refuse.

"_Avada Kedavra_."

The reddish-golden light of the room quelled against the green glow that erupted from Hermione's wand. It went after Voldemort like lightning, hit his prone, still body, obscuring him briefly with its brightness.

Then it was over as soon as it began, and the green light was gone, leaving only the flickering of the fire and the flash of Nagini's attack.

"_Stupefy_." Hermione didn't even blink. Nagini thudded heavily to the floor, unconscious.

"What have you done?" Carmen asked, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her.

"What I had to do," Hermione said. "What he asked of me."

"Oh," Carmen said. He released her. His carpet sank until it was about the height of her knees. "I didn't realize … I thought…"

"I understand."

So this was what the Killing Curse did. This hollowness in her chest and her belly, as though the Killing Curse had swept in like a Dementor and sucked out all her vital organs. She shuffled to the bed. Voldemort's eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, his mouth slightly open. She covered his eyes and closed his eyelids, then leaned down to collect the body.

His eyes moved under her palm.

Hermione gave a little scream and jumped back. Voldemort almost looked dead, everything about him almost deathly still, but his eyes were darting about in dreamstate, and when Hermione put her hand over his mouth, she felt the slightest puff of his breath. He was asleep again.

Not dead.

Hermione stared down at him, shivering even though the fire under the mantel still raged as high as she could keep it.

She fell to her knees. Sweat dripped down her forehead and her cheeks, and she buried her face in his blankets with a soft cry from a place inside of her not quite numbed like the rest.

He should have died. Hermione was capable of a Killing Curse, sensed it all through her body now.

But she couldn't kill him.

And now she understood. _Save yourself._

Hermione raised her head.

"Merlin, you look terrible, and you're sitting next to a … why is he not dead?" Carmen asked.

"Carmen, I need you to get Wormtail," Hermione said.

"What?" he asked incredulously.

"I need Wormtail," she repeated.

"What can he do that I can't?"

"He's the traitor," Hermione said, but before Carmen could fly into a rage, Hermione stood, and he retreated back a foot or so. "And I need his help."

v888v

Carmen dragged a disarmed Wormtail into the unwarded room by the scruff of his neck and threw him into a heap on the floor.

"That was unnecessary," Hermione said to Carmen.

"You told me he was the traitor. He deserves this and worse," Carmen snarled.

"If you want to survive the next week without being thrown in prison, it would be advantageous to turn traitor yourself," Hermione replied. Wormtail twitched from his awkward position and looked up in surprise.

"H-Hermione?" he said, disbelieving. "Is that you?"

She didn't have enough time to look at herself in a mirror to see whatever change made both Wormtail and Carmen regard her with awestruck fear. Part of her hoped that, whatever it was, it would eventually wear off. That same part of her thought that if she felt that way, there was a glimmer of hope that it would.

"Are you … are you giving me partisan advice, Medicus?" Carmen asked. He did not appear accusing, just curious and confused.

"I'm merely stating the facts," Hermione said. "What you choose to do with them is up to you and not ultimately my concern." When she swallowed, it was as though she drank something cold. "Although I would prefer that your friendship with the Dark Lord not mean your downfall. You were never truly his servant. Please, Carmen."

"What are you going to do?" Carmen asked.

Hermione directed her attention to Wormtail, who slowly pushed himself to his knees. "I need you to give this to Harry," she said, handing him a folded letter. "It's unsealed, but I want Harry alone to read it first if possible."

"You're betraying him, too? You're joining forces with this sniveling, cowardly rat who turned his back on Voldemort?" Carmen raised his hand to strike Wormtail, but to Carmen's surprise, Wormtail leapt up and blocked the blow, pulling back his fist.

Hermione whipped her wand between them. "Carmen! Peter!"

The sound of Wormtail's given name startled them both. At Hermione's urging and afraid she might curse them in her present state, they released each other and took a step back, adjusting their robes.

"This isn't about the Order versus Death Eaters or blood feuds or ideology anymore," Hermione explained. "This is about what's best for him, Carmen."

She turned to Wormtail. "Can you do that for me? Harry will let you return with your answer. And if you're lucky, you may just assuage your life debt. To both of them."

"Y-yes. Yes," Wormtail said, forcing himself not to stutter just once for her. "I can do this. I need my wand back, though."

Carmen glared at Wormtail, but Hermione nodded. Carmen reluctantly handed it over.

Wormtail Disapparated immediately. Hermione turned her back on Carmen before he could ask her what the hell was going on.

"Do you have someone you can go to, Carmen? Someone to surrender to?" Hermione asked quietly, approaching Voldemort. Wormtail hadn't even had time to see what was left of his old master, distracted as he was by Hermione's request.

He sidled his carpet up behind her. "I have a few old contacts, yes."

"I cannot vouch for you, even if my word had any weight with them," she said.

"Hermione, _what_ is going on? Is it because you're his Medicus, or…?"

"No," she answered hollowly. "This isn't about me. This is about Voldemort and Harry. It always has been. You should go, while you still can. You can't help him anymore."

Carmen pulled his own wand from his sleeve, but before he Disapparated, he whispered in her ear, "It was always about you, lady."

v888v

**Author's Notes: **As promised, the last chapter is already finished as of this being posted, so it will be available soon as well.


	24. Chapter Twenty-four

**Chapter 24**

When Wormtail returned over an hour later, he appeared pale, but Hermione saw light underneath the waxy flesh. Hermione didn't know how he managed to hide it for so long. Or maybe it really was new; maybe this was the absolution he was looking for.

"Harry answered yes," Hermione said.

Wormtail nodded. "I read the note before I returned. I—"

He stopped when he saw Voldemort.

"Merlin and Nimue," he breathed, and Hermione thought she heard sorrow mixed with the reactive disgust. Wormtail had seen Voldemort at his weakest before, took care of him out of fear and desire for self-advancement. This time, his fate was not linked with Voldemort's, and he proved he had some measure of compassion. Hermione wondered if he would have reacted this way eight years ago. She didn't think so.

She sighed. Maybe Harry's virtue would rub off on her, too … if he would let her get close enough to absorb it.

"I can carry him, but Harry will trust you more than me, given some of our recent altercations," Hermione said. "Perhaps it was meant for you to deliver Voldemort to him, since you delivered him to Voldemort once. Hopefully that will balance the scales, at least more in your favor."

"I f-feel it will," Wormtail murmured. He hesitated by the bed. "Is he asleep? Will I wake him if I carry him? How should I—?"

Voldemort's eyes were still moving fitfully under his eyelids, and Hermione brushed her fingers over his forehead as though he were a dreaming child. Wormtail abruptly stopped talking.

"_Enervate_," Hermione murmured, but as she suspected, Voldemort did not wake. He would not awaken again.

She touched his chest and dipped into his mind. She retreated quickly, pursued by the hellish visions of weakness and doubt and desire for death and more than anything, the unfamiliar assault of regret. It startled a stab of heartache and fear that radiated outward from her chest. Strangely enough, she welcomed them, because it made her feel a little more like herself.

Voldemort was dying, but even without the immortality spells, he could not die. He would not wake from this nightmare, and no antidote she ever brewed would rescue him. The images that lingered in her head bolstered her resolve. Hermione looked back up at Wormtail, who took in the way she touched Voldemort. She thought he understood what it was he saw, but not why, and she might have also detected a hint of jealousy. She didn't care. He didn't need to know why. No one did. He just needed to do his part.

"You could use magic to carry him, but it tends to slough off," Hermione said. She pulled the blankets out from under the mattress and tucked them around Voldemort's body. "It would be easier to just carry him. He doesn't weigh much anymore. It should be no trouble."

Wormtail's widening eyes alerted her to the movement behind her, and Hermione reacted automatically, this time foregoing the Killing Curse and choosing Severus's creation. "_Sectumsempra!_"

Nagini practically shrieked as invisible claws slashed all over her long body, spewing blood onto the floor. Her head hit Hermione's knee as Hermione rolled onto the bed, but Nagini did not bite down.

She hoped Nagini understood her when Hermione whispered, "Sorry." And she was. But Hermione wasn't going to heal her, not when Voldemort's death meant that Nagini would be a threat to Hermione's life as long as the snake lived. Nagini couldn't comprehend the intricacies of Medicus guidelines or that what Hermione was doing was for Voldemort's benefit.

Even so, Hermione doubted Nagini would have survived much longer without Voldemort's protection.

"A-a-are you all r-r-r-r-right?" Wormtail asked. The stress of a venomous snake attack aggravated his stutter, but Hermione brushed away his concern. She wrapped her arms around Voldemort's shoulders and under his knees.

"Here," Hermione said. "Careful."

It was a silly thing to say. If Wormtail dropped him, Voldemort would never know or feel the effects. And she was giving him to Wormtail so that Harry could kill him. A few bruises or awkward handling seemed small in comparison.

Still, Wormtail cradled him like a child, the position familiar for him. Voldemort was bigger than he had been before, but he still weighed next to nothing. Wormtail held his wand in his silver hand, ready to Apparate when Hermione was.

Hermione slipped her hand under Voldemort's pillow and found his wand there, now essentially a useless piece of wood to its owner. She retrieved her own wand and sheathed Voldemort's in her sleeve.

Wormtail swallowed when Hermione gripped his shoulder, and she took one of Voldemort's thin hands as though to reassure him in his nightmare. When she nodded, Wormtail Disapparated them both.

It helped that she did not have to maintain a complicated series of defense spells around them as they Apparated, but that didn't make her enjoy the disorienting journey any more than usual. Especially when they appeared in the dining room of Grimmauld Place.

As she requested, Harry was alone, although she heard some commotion on the other side of the door. She had instructed him in the letter to do whatever he needed to feel secure, but she wanted no one but him and Wormtail to see Voldemort as he was now. And both of them were only by necessity.

She doubted that he would break the agreement, not after what she promised him in return.

Harry tried to appear stronger than he was, but any Healer worth her salt would notice that he braced his weight against a chair and he'd left two canes by the door. The lightning bolt scar was no longer the most prominent on his face. His flesh was pieced together like a human jigsaw puzzle, but whatever serums he took for the pain management and healing process were working. In six more months, he would be walking without the help of the canes and his scars would lighten to pale ghosts of themselves. If he were lucky, they would become almost imperceptible. Then again, Harry was used to scars. A few more wouldn't hurt, even if she was the one who gave them to him.

However, for someone who likely broke every bone in his body several months ago, he looked good. Better than the man in Wormtail's arms.

"Lay him on the table, Peter, please," Hermione said. She had a feeling the use of his given name would get her even further with him than using his crush on her. It told him that maybe, just maybe, she believed him capable of better things. It wasn't quite forgiveness, but it was still a positive step.

When Wormtail put him down, Harry couldn't quite conceal his initial shock. He quickly schooled his expression into something more stoic when he turned back to her.

"Hermione," Harry said stiffly.

"Harry," Hermione replied. She reached out with some hesitation, but he didn't jerk away, so she smoothed his messy hair away from his face to inspect any head damage. "Any complications?"

"I was kind of out of it for a few weeks, but Geraldine tells me I should be Quidditch-ready within a year," he said.

"Earlier," Hermione corrected. "You're smaller than average. It takes less effort for the potions to take effect."

"What happened to you?" Harry asked, withdrawing a little.

"I don't know what everyone's seeing, but I assume it's because I tried to kill him myself," Hermione replied.

The Harry Potter of her seventh year might have recoiled in surprise, but over a decade of war had hardened the man before her. He knew what was at stake.

"I could have tried other ways, like used a gun or run a blade over his throat. But if my Killing Curse didn't work, I don't think anything else would," Hermione said evenly. "Not—not from me."

"You tried to kill him," Harry repeated. "Isn't that against your code, Medicus?"

"For Merlin's sake, Harry, you won. Okay? He's been out of commission for at least a month, and he's been dying even longer."

Hermione looked away from Harry and took in the limp form on the table, everything Voldemort never wanted to be.

"There comes a point when keeping him alive is … cruel. I'm sure _you_ don't mind that he's in his version of hell, a nightmare he can't wake up from. But you know what the prophecy said, that neither of you could live as long as the other one does. This war won't truly be over until he's dead, and I can't do that for him. I can't give him that gift. Only you can, because you have what's left of him, a piece of him. Here."

Hermione brushed her thumb over Harry's lightning bolt scar. "The protection your mother gave you. I need you to be a better man than him, Harry. I need you to kill him and free the both of you. I need you to show him the mercy he wouldn't dream of returning."

Wormtail watched them, bemused. It was probably more explanation than he ever expected to witness himself.

"You're not doing this for me," Harry murmured. "You're doing this for him."

"I have to," Hermione said. "Does it matter?"

"Are you sure _your_ love won't protect him?" Harry retorted.

"It isn't like that!" Hermione protested. "Even if it were … even if it were, I can't save his life, Harry. I just want to help him die. He was always living on borrowed time. Don't bind your misery to his."

"Don't keep him miserable, you mean," Harry said.

"It can mean whatever you need it to mean, Harry," Hermione replied coldly, and Harry cringed at whatever he saw, whatever change the Killing Curse wrought. "Why do my motives matter? I let Wormtail deliver Voldemort to you on a silver platter. I'm sorry I hurt you, but at least Voldemort didn't kill you. I'm sorry Severus is hurt and that Remus is dead. I never wanted these things, but we both had responsibilities we didn't want. We were both bound by fate into doing things we weren't proud of. So if I did love him – and I'm not saying I do – and I wanted you to save him by killing him, why wouldn't you?"

Harry paced, gripping the chairs for balance on his way. As he turned back to Hermione and Wormtail, he curled his lip a little at Wormtail. "Well, I can tell just by looking at you that you want me to do it."

"It would satisfy my d-debt to you," Wormtail admitted.

Harry's contempt softened. "It wouldn't release you from your vow to me."

Wormtail shook his head. "No. I'd still be in your service."

"_Do_ you love him?" Harry asked abruptly, pinning Hermione with his sharp, falcon-like gaze.

"Voldemort?" she asked.

"No, Wormtail," Harry snapped. At her stricken expression, he realized his mistake. Wormtail became engrossed with the toes of his boots, and Harry backpedaled, looking for the first time like the man she knew before Voldemort took her on as Medicus. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean it like that. It's just that anyone who saw the two of you together during the battles … Draco told me about the obsession he seemed to have for you. And the way you're acting now…"

"I don't know," Hermione interrupted. "What difference does it make?"

"Severus said you'd say that," Harry said quietly.

"Severus can go to hell." Hermione crossed her arms. "Will you do this for me? Please, Harry. If I need to beg, I'll do it."

Harry pulled out his wand, but he narrowed his eyes. "This isn't a trick, is it? 'Cause I'm pretty sure my death would be helpful for Voldemort, too."

"I know magic can fake a lot, but does that look like a trick?" Hermione asked, pointing at Voldemort. She edged closer to him and adjusted the blankets around him so that some of the sores and scales were visible. Stroking over his collarbone, Hermione experienced a flash of connection, a brief awareness of his presence. He was still locked in dreamstate, but he knew she was there.

_I'm trying_, she tried to tell him, but she couldn't know if he got the message.

"Look, Harry," she murmured, fighting the impulse to linger within Voldemort's consciousness for just a few more moments, "I would have avoided a death of political significance if I could have. I told you that I already did the Killing Curse. No one else can kill him, Harry. The prophecy is clear on that, and it makes magical sense. The fact that it ends the war is a good thing. And if people know that I and Wormtail were the ones who brought him to you, maybe that'll be a good thing for us, too. But more important to me right now is that it's what Voldemort needs. I also know that it's the most important thing for you as well. Do it with the Killing Curse or with the damn Gryffindor sword if that's what you think is appropriate. But there is nothing bad here, for any of us."

"Except for the Death Eaters not on our side," Harry pointed out. "And Voldemort."

"Most of the ones left can rot in Azkaban for all I care," Hermione replied. She smoothed her fingertips over the scales on his sternum before she forced herself to pull back. "And I already told you that death is the best medicine that I can give him."

Hermione noticed Wormtail nodding his encouragement, and Harry relented, lowering his head. "Fine. Killing Curse is cleaner. Are you sure it will work?"

"Not at all," Hermione said. "Seems to be a trend. With my luck with him, it'll make no difference."

Wormtail made a snuffling sound that was probably a muffled snort. It broke some of the additional tension between her and Harry, and she didn't resist when Harry took her arm and guided her away from Voldemort.

"Don't want to hit you, too," he whispered.

"I don't suppose I have to tell you to mean it," Hermione said. She heard her voice from far away, as far away as Voldemort was.

"No less than you did," Harry said, but hatred didn't twist his face as he pointed his wand at Voldemort and shouted, "_Avada Kedavra!_"

All three of them screamed. Hermione and Wormtail fell to their knees and clutched their arms. Her forearm burned worse than when Voldemort branded her in the first place, and the burning was slow to weaken. But when she pulled up her sleeve, she knew without looking up that Voldemort was dead. The tattoo was nothing but scar tissue.

Harry clung to the back of a chair. A drop of blood slide down over his lip from where it had fallen from his forehead. The lightning bolt scar had reopened after all these years, and a piece of foreign tissue as small as a peppercorn stuck to Harry's eyebrow.

Wincing as she stood, Hermione wrapped her arm around Harry and brushed the piece of flesh onto the table. It fell wetly next to Voldemort's delicate neck. The rapid eye movement had ceased. Hermione touched his chest and tried to go back into him, but there was nothing to go into. His life force was gone, just like his magic.

Hermione looked back at Harry and saw in him what everyone else must see in her. His face had gone paler than usual, greenish under the new scars, almost like a new Inferius, although it was more impression than just physical appearance.

At least this one had a fair exchange.

The Dark Mark was gone, and the inexplicable link the Medicus commitment made between her and Voldemort had been severed.

Voldemort was dead.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked. The question rang empty, like a bell in a giant ballroom, but soulful color was already beginning to overcome the dullness in Harry's green eyes.

Hermione opened her mouth, but her answer caught in her throat like a jagged rock, and she couldn't say anything. Not yet. She dabbed at the open wound on Harry's forehead with her sleeve. Harry hissed. Something in her chest lurched.

"That hurts like hell," Harry said.

Hermione checked that Wormtail was all right. She coughed to get the obstruction out of her throat, and she managed to find her voice for long enough to say to Harry, "I need Voldemort's body to stay here for now, undisturbed. Can you do that?"

"Is it over?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione replied. "_This_ war is over. Can you keep everyone else from knowing yet? I have to talk to someone else before… before everyone knows."

"Yeah." Harry lowered himself to one of the chairs and held his head in his hands as though it would split like a coconut at any moment. "I won't let anyone desecrate the body if that's what you're worried about. It's over."

The body.

Hermione Disapparated while she still had her mind. The wards around the fortress, bolstered by his followers' Marks, had been destroyed with the Marks themselves. There was chaos within the fortress, and Hermione passed through it like stillness in a storm. No one noticed her, at least not until she reached the audience chamber, where all Voldemort's followers who hadn't run away fled for answers.

She peered through the frantic, frenetic crowd until she found Draco and Blaise, calmer in the midst of the throng, but just as confused. As she pushed her way to them, people began to notice she was there and what all this chaos might mean. She threw up reflective defenses when she heard the start of spells. The spells bounced back at their casters, and their minds returned to them as well – she was a Medicus, whether she was Voldemort's Medicus or not, and deliberately attacking her was still punishable by swift and terrible retribution. They were, in fact, lucky that she stopped their curses from hitting her.

"You … you traitorous _bitch_," Lucius spat, pointing his wand at her. "I was right, you were the one who betrayed us all along."

"_Expelliarmus_." Lucius's wand flew out of his hand. His expression would have been comical if Hermione could find anything humorous at the moment.

The wand arced over the rest of the crowd, and Draco snatched it out of the air with little effort. After all, he had been a fair Seeker himself.

"I don't think so, Father," Draco said. "I'll bet she was loyal to the Dark Lord until his end, and beyond. In her unique way." He nodded to her, his entire countenance surprisingly warm, even sympathetic.

"Draco. My son. What have you done?" Lucius said, utterly flummoxed. Shame, embarrassment, and fear passed over his face in turns.

"Made the right choice. Backed the right hippogriff, some might say. And you should thank me. It's the only reason you and Mother are alive," Draco said. "Of course, if you make things difficult, I can't guarantee how well things go for you in the near future. But I wouldn't recommend attacking Medicus Granger. She was only doing her job. If she killed him, that was what was best. Isn't that right, Granger?" he added with a slight sneer.

"I didn't kill him," Hermione said.

"You look like you did," Draco replied.

Hermione ignored him. "Lord Voldemort is dead. That was all I wanted to tell you."

When she turned around to leave, she checked whether Carmen had remained, but she could not find him in the crowd or his telltale flying carpet.

"The rest is up to you," she murmured, but like Voldemort himself, her words managed to reach the farthest corners of the room. It seemed like Draco and his friends had the rest of Voldemort's followers well in hand. Good riddance to the fools.

She slammed the chamber doors behind her.

v888v

She Apparated to just outside of Hogwarts and unleashed her frustration on the clanking, locked gates until Dumbledore came down and opened them for her. She paused upon seeing him.

"Severus told you," Hermione said. "I should have remembered."

"Well worth the abuse of my gates, I'm sure," Dumbledore said. "Please accompany me to my office, Miss Granger."

Up close, he looked significantly older than when last she saw him face-to-face. His flamboyant robes and long beard and clear aura of power easily masked the frailty in the way he carried himself, in the way the skin on his flesh was riddled with lines and spots. It occurred to Hermione that Dumbledore himself might not be long for this world either, that he might have been holding on for the sake of the war against Voldemort alone to avoid unfinished business.

"Have you told anyone?" Hermione asked as they approached the castle entrance.

"No," Dumbledore replied. "But you should expect that the news will not stay a secret for long."

She said nothing more as she followed Dumbledore into Hogwarts. Her best memories of the school twisted with the worst, nostalgia laced with poison. She received a few curious stares from passing students, but no one but most of the professors and perhaps the portraits would recognize her now. Even the first years from back when she left Hogwarts for good had graduated last year.

"Nonpareils."

The guardian let them pass, and Hermione re-entered his office, mostly unchanged from the last time she'd been here, like much of Hogwarts. The students changed – so much – but Hogwarts stayed steadfast, impartial, and immovable. It kept the secrets of the dark and light, sheltered the stalwart and suspicious, nurtured education of all kinds. Hermione did not think she could have recognized the Dark magic seeped into the history of the stone when she was younger, but she sensed it now.

"Would you like to take a seat, Hermione?" Dumbledore asked. He had to hold onto the edge of the desk to lower himself down on his chair. He did not offer her a sherbet lemon, but unlike the last time he invited her to his office, his gaze was neither hard nor disapproving. She saw no judgment. Instead, he just seemed tired.

She didn't sit. Instead, Hermione fought the urge to pace. Manic energy swirled inside her, building up under her chest behind her ribcage.

"Is Severus's report true?" Dumbledore asked, folding his hands on the desk. "Is Voldemort dead?"

Hermione glanced up at the Headmaster and Headmistress portraits. The ones that had not heard Severus's report snapped to attention at the blunt question.

Dumbledore bowed his head. "Those portraits that remain are sworn to secrecy for anything spoken between us now. Please, Hermione, is Voldemort dead?"

"Yes. Harry killed him," Hermione replied dispassionately.

"And how did Harry manage such a thing, confined to his home as he is and with Voldemort hidden away in his fortress?" Dumbledore asked. His magical power had not faded, but Hermione noted that the strength of his voice, when unbolstered by magic, had diminished.

"I, his Medicus, enlisted Peter Pettigrew's help to bring him to Harry," Hermione said.

"May I ask why?" he asked gently.

"He had nothing left to live for," Hermione replied. "He asked me to. There was no hope for recovery, and I couldn't kill him myself."

"You clearly made an attempt."

Hermione did not lower her eyes in shame. She accepted the consequences of the Killing Curse the way she accepted the consequences of everything else she did for Voldemort.

"Are you certain that he is dead?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes."

"You understand that the wizarding world believed him dead before, and they were wrong," Dumbledore said. "I will need to confirm."

Hermione yanked Voldemort's wand from her sleeve and snapped the wood in two. The finalistic sound was terribly weak, like trodden twigs. She threw the two parts of the wand at Dumbledore. They clattered on the wooden desk. Dumbledore was unable to repress his flinch.

"How is that for confirmation?" Hermione asked. Her tone remained emotionless, but she caught on the last word, and her vision began to swim. The obstruction in her throat returned.

"Need more proof?" she asked. She raised her sleeve to show him the scar tissue where the Dark Mark had been. "How's this? And for the coup de grace, how about something I can't fake?"

She cast a spell on the fastenings of her Medicus robes, and they split down her back to reveal to Dumbledore nothing but an expanse of skin.

"Is it gone?" she whispered.

"Yes, Miss Granger, the tattoo is gone."

"Then there's your confirmation," Hermione said. She didn't turn back around to face Dumbledore. She clutched her robes against her chest and refastened them, but her hand shook. "I had a permanent binding. It only ended with his d-death."

The first hot tear burned a path down her cheek. Hermione sucked in another breath, but the obstruction caught the next, and grief breached the barriers erected by the Killing Curse's side effects.

"Oh god," she whispered. "It's over. He's gone."

Why was she crying tears of sorrow when they should have been tears of joy? All those people he destroyed and tore down with no consideration for their lives or their potential – the torture, the deaths, the battles, the casualties, the prisoners, Harry, Remus, Severus, Ron, Dumbledore … and herself. She was his victim as well, so why did she feel as if something essential had been ripped out of her?

Tears streamed down her face. When she brought her hands to her cheeks to wipe them away, she almost thought they would come back bloody, she hurt so much all over. She gasped for air but couldn't seem to get enough.

She stumbled, and Dumbledore brought his hand to her back, steadying her as her legs stopped supporting her. He took her hand that held her wand and helped lower her to the ground to lean against his desk, then guided her head between her knees.

"Hermione, I know I disappointed you all those years ago," Dumbledore said. It couldn't have been comfortable for him to kneel beside her, but he stayed nonetheless, rubbing her back as she choked through the sudden onset of every awful emotion wrought from Voldemort's death. "Every year you didn't return to him, every year you worked for one of the most prestigious and respected healing orders – if not the most honorable – I regretted how little faith I had in you. When you did return, I know you struggled, Hermione, with him and with the task set to you by the Oracle. And I know you ultimately chose to embrace your role in his life, but I know not a single moment was based on malice, no matter the anger you felt toward me or Harry or any of us for what we did to you.

"I could see how you might have grown to love him as much as he can be loved. I know that he trusted you implicitly to protect him and to do your best to help him. I know that because he asked you to kill him, and I didn't think that was possible. Whatever you did, he knew that you were his Medicus and did everything in your considerable power to help him."

That just hurt worse, because his death – the erasure of his Mark and the mark of the binding – meant failure to her. Failure to keep him alive, to heal him, to serve the purpose for which he employed her in the first place. He had doomed himself, but she had done nothing but speed up the process from beginning to end – his end, an end he deserved but still wholly unfitting his significance, his achievements, his intelligence, and his power. He should have died in battle, not the crippled, weakened shell he had become, the once proud man begging for mercy – going so far as to give her implicit permission to enlist Harry's help.

She should have done more for him, and now she couldn't change the facts plain before her. Voldemort was dead. She was instrumental in that state. Her fealty to him ended with his death. The war was over. Because she'd had her client killed.

There was only one thing left for her to do for him. In truth, Hermione's obligation reached farther than the Medicus binding, and she understood that now. If no one else would stand behind her, Hermione was accustomed to standing alone. Just let them try to stop her.

Hermione used the skirts of her robes to discreetly wipe the tears away. She couldn't do anything about the unavoidable blotchiness or red eyes, but coupled with the consequences of the Killing Curse, she couldn't care less what she looked like. There were more important matters to attend to, one more thing she needed to do.

Dumbledore held out a handkerchief to her, white cotton dotted with purple pygmy puffs. She brushed it away.

"Here's what I want," Hermione said. "I don't want his body displayed in any way. I want Harry to confirm the death to the Ministry and the media. For corroboration, they can get an official statement from the Medicus Order. They'll have already learned I am no longer bound in service. They may have been called a lot of things by the Ministry, but no one ever called them dishonest."

"That sounds reasonable," Dumbledore replied. He tucked the handkerchief back into his robes, although she could not discern quite where.

"I want to bury him in the Forbidden Forest," she continued. "I know a place. It will ensure that he will remain undisturbed. If I must, I will bury him myself."

"The Ministry will want a public display this time," Dumbledore said.

"Then they can create a dummy corpse and build a giant monument of shame if they so choose, but I want the body, the real burial site, and the funeral. His humiliation is complete. Do you understand that, Albus? I won't have everyone see what he became. They'll feel smug enough that he's dead."

"I cannot ensure—"

"You and I both know that is utter bullshite. Harry just killed Lord Voldemort. I'm pretty sure they'll give him everything he wants. As long as they make sure everyone else perceives they've got their pound of flesh."

"Hermione, I'm not sure whether Tom has earned a quiet, respectful funeral," Dumbledore said softly. She detected no outrage or offense in his statement, which was the only reason she did not attack him right in his office, Medicus laws be damned. "I know you cared for him, and that may have been the best thing anyone could have given him, even though you believe it wasn't enough. But he was not just your client. He was a public figure, and he did many terrible things. You know this better than anyone. Reparations must be made, as best as they can."

Hermione grabbed the edge of the desk to pull herself to her feet. After some consideration, she helped Dumbledore to his feet as well. After all, he helped her to the ground.

"If you knew and if they knew what he went through, especially these last few months," Hermione said, as quiet as she was resolute, "you would understand that reparations have been paid. The universe repaid his deeds back to him in his life instead of his death. These aren't requests. I'm telling you what _will_ happen."

"I do not doubt your determination. I know better than that," Dumbledore said. He led her to one of the chairs and sat himself down as well. This time Hermione accepted the seat, swiping at the rest of the tears that refused to stop entirely, but at least she could speak now. "However, your obligation to Voldemort ended with his death, not his burial. Technically, the Ministry may do as it likes."

"I've never known that to stop you. Or Harry. Or me. Who's been fighting this war again? Certainly not the Ministry. I trust your ability to help give me what I need."

Hermione rubbed her forehead and fought against the nausea twisting in her stomach.

"Hermione?"

"Yes, Albus."

"I am sorry for your loss."

No mention of the last battle, of Harry's injuries, of the vicious attack between Dumbledore and Voldemort with Hermione. They were all just doing their respective duties. Any remnant of resentment or doubt originated from long before.

But his condolences were genuine. She pulled her grief back in anyway, although she felt it fighting to get out in the worst way it could think of. She wanted to hurt someone, something, even if she was the only one available. She could do that when she was alone again. Not here.

"I need to retrieve a few things from the fortress. Then I will arrange the interment of the body, which means that I will be in the Forbidden Forest through the evening."

"Be careful, Hermione," Dumbledore warned. "I can offer no protection in there."

"Nothing in there would dare stop me," Hermione said coldly.

Her Dark magic twined with her grief in icy waves, and Dumbledore knew the truth of her words. It made him sad to see her like this, shadowed and submerged in the Dark magic she had fought against in her younger years and that he feared would overtake her. But at the same time, Dumbledore could see that her soul and heart were balanced in a way that Tom could never have hoped for. He thought Voldemort would be proud of her now, but Dumbledore, weary though he was, was proud of her as well. When she no longer had any need for this Darkness, he believed she could discard it much more easily than before. She was stronger than he had ever seen her.

"Well," Dumbledore said, taking her hand. She allowed him to. "Good luck, Miss Granger. And again, I am sorry."

"Thank you. Goodbye, Albus."

"Miss Granger," he called after her. She stopped at the door, facing away from him. "His journey has not ended. And those we love never really leave us. Remember that."

After her parents died, Hermione only had memories of them. She never sensed their presence again, the whiff of her mother's perfume or the way her father emanated warmth. Voldemort was once with her at all times, through both her Marks, and now he was gone. That was all she expected.

Hermione closed the office door behind her.

She didn't think she would see him again.

v888v

After crooning through the liliaths, Hermione removed the dragonhide cloak and hung it on a tree. She lowered the dragonhide bag hovering next to her to the ground. The liliath grove would be an even better deterrent to vandals in the Forbidden Forest than the centaur herd, and centaurs would not take offense at a mausoleum in their woods.

Once she determined she would not be disturbed, she began her casting, conjuring the giant granite stones from the earth and sliding the lid to the side. An empty grave. Magic could raise the lid, but Hermione's wards would last at least three generations if she bound it tightly enough to the stone.

Hermione lowered her wand. The spells settled in, and all that was left was to bury him.

She unzipped the bag. When she had retrieved the body from Grimmauld Place, she kept the blankets around him, but now she took out a set of his robes from her satchel and did the fastenings up by hand. She could have used magic. Even if Voldemort's body rejected magic in death, she could have spelled the robes. But she preferred to do it herself. The heavy robes hid the way his already skeletal body had shrunk even more, hid the bruising from internal bleeding, the sores, the scales, and the places where the decay reached the surface. They were too big for him, but at least he looked more impressive.

It took little effort for her to pick him up and put him in the stone casket. She also put the pieces of his wand in his hand. It was probably better that no one else could use it. It had been responsible for too much Dark magic, and Hermione feared its legacy might infect its next witch or wizard. However, it belonged with him, a testament to the great power he once possessed.

"Good evening, lady." Carmen sank down between the branches, bypassing most of the Forbidden Forest's obstacles. Inhabitants discouraged broomstick flying, but it might have been a while since they last saw a flying carpet.

Hermione rested on the edge of the coffin, staring down at Voldemort. She initially did not acknowledge Carmen's presence, but he took no offense.

"The _Prophet_ is praising your name – less effusively than Harry Potter's, but he seems to have impressed upon them how instrumental you were in Voldemort's death. Witches and wizards are celebrating in the streets once again. The Ministry tried to take responsibility, but there were enough people fighting with Dumbledore this time – even Ministry officials, especially Aurors – that they're having none of it," Carmen said, filling the silence.

Hermione welcomed his chatter, and the presence of the one other person in the world who would want to attend Voldemort's funeral instead of a bacchanalian burning of his effigy. She was glad she thought to summon him.

"I take it you found sanctuary," Hermione muttered.

"You wouldn't believe who if I told you," Carmen replied. "We engaged in a mighty battle and ended with a stalemate. And then he offered me tea."

A small smile briefly appeared on her lips. "Do you bond over missing limbs?"

"We complain like old men," Carmen said. "I think my laidback indifference complements his paranoia."

"But you're safe?"

"For now," Carmen said. "I will likely suffer the consequences of my company, but Moody nearly poisoned me with Truth Serum to find out if I was lying. I think it's still in my system."

"Not that you ever needed it," Hermione said. She took a deep breath. She thought she might cry again, but her body was arid. She had nothing left, and her emotions ran deeper than that now.

"It should have ended differently," she murmured. "He didn't _deserve_ more dignity, but he earned a better death than this. This was so small, humiliating to the very end. One of the most powerful wizards in an age, and this is how he died."

"There is no dignity in death, lady," Carmen replied. "In the midst of a battle or death of old age, death gives no one dignity. The only dignity comes in the acceptance of death, and Lord Voldemort eventually did, if he told you to end him. In that way, he died with more dignity than most. He was lucky to have a Medicus who respected both his will to live and his will to die. And I thank Merlin that he found someone to love before his end."

"He didn't love me," Hermione said.

"In his way."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think he even loved life, despite how hard he clung to immortality. I think he just couldn't imagine a world in which he did not exist, so he had to rig that outcome."

"He would have never allowed anyone else to do what you did with him," Carmen said. "I do not just mean the act of love. Everything you did for him, everything he did to and for you. It may not have been good as you might have wanted it, lady, but the two of you made your own kind of magic. You were his enchantment, and even the Medicus Oracle knew he was meant for you."

"The Oracle isn't a matchmaker, Carmen."

"I beg to differ." He swept around the grave. "Perhaps you cannot see it yet. And you don't need to. Shall I close the grave?"

"No." Hermione fought the shaking in her legs as she stood. "The wards are keyed to my magic. I must bury him."

Carmen bowed and moved back a few feet into the shadows of the forest.

She would kiss Voldemort's forehead, but he wasn't there anymore. Hermione brought the stone cover up and lowered it until it sealed around the edges, locking the body in. The mausoleum rang with the whispers of the wards and the forest. She thought she heard cheers from Hogwarts coming in on the wind, but it was probably her imagination.

Hermione stepped out of the open mausoleum. Carmen joined her as she wrapped her dragonhide cloak around her again.

"So you are vindicated by the wizarding world, not that it matters much to you. What are you going to do now?" he asked.

v888v

She sat on the bed in her cell and stared at the trunk of books she rescued from Voldemort's library. They fairly pulsed with Dark magic, but she thought some open air might diffuse its effect over time, and she didn't fear them anymore. She had walked in Darkness and while she did not escape it unscathed, she hadn't sunk into its morass to emerge a new Dark witch. She was just Hermione, still.

Her letter of resignation from the Medicus Order rested on her lap. Marilyn would hear that she returned soon, and Hermione would give it to her then. She didn't have a place to stay or something new to do with her life, but in spite of the impassioned defense Harry gave her in the papers, she was damaged goods. She wasn't fit to help anyone right now. The Dark magic hadn't destroyed her by any means, but she couldn't be an effective healer with the way the magic and Voldemort had changed her, the way she twisted all her ethics to help him, even if she had followed the letter of the Medicus laws.

Voldemort had been such a unique specimen, with particular needs few in the world required. She could not in good conscience inflict herself upon someone else, not until she figured out again which way was up.

It was time to move on. The salary from the permanent Medicus binding would support her for the rest of her life if she needed it to. She was eminently capable, and she could always go into freelance research or even attempt an entrepreneurial endeavor.

But for now, she just needed to leave and get as far from the wizarding world she knew as she could.

"Come in," Hermione called when she heard the knock.

As Marilyn wrapped her arms around Hermione's shoulders, Hermione accepted the embrace, but it gave her no comfort. Shannon might understand some of what Hermione felt, but Marilyn wouldn't. Marilyn believed she simply grieved, the way any Medicus would after the death of a client, especially after a permanent binding.

"You know, when you left you probably wouldn't have let me do that," Marilyn said.

Hermione handed her the folded parchment.

"Is this what I think it is?" Marilyn asked.

"Depends on what you think it is," Hermione replied.

"You need some time and you've gone through a great ordeal. I understand why you would want to quit now, and under usual circumstances, I might agree," Marilyn said. "But before I open this and accept it … the Oracle passed this request to you."

"Already?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow. "My contract only ended this morning."

"You are an exceptional Medicus, Hermione," Marilyn said solemnly. "No one would question that now." She gave Hermione the request letter.

"_I_ do," Hermione muttered.

"It's only a temporary request, so if you still feel like you must leave us after you see it, the Oracle will accept your refusal," Marilyn said. "But I _really_ think you should consider it before I open this." Marilyn held up Hermione's resignation.

Hermione met Marilyn's eyes for a few moments. An Elder wasn't supposed to push a Medicus one way or the other on a request; it could be construed as favoritism for the Medicus as well as for the client. Marilyn could not completely understand how Hermione's last client – and his loss – affected her, but Hermione had always been a special case within the Medicus Order. So if Marilyn was treading the thin line of Medicus law, she obviously did so for a good reason.

Hermione unfolded the request letter and read through the form. When her eyes landed on the signature, she almost laughed.

She refolded the letter and closed it with the Medicus seal.

"Please tell Severus Snape that I accept his request."

v888v

**Final Author's Note:** Those last two chapters were emotionally hard for both me and my beta. I can't believe it's over, for Voldemort and for this story arc.

This has been quite a journey. From the beginning of Abyss to the end of Ascent, I have been working on these fics for eight and a half years and almost 250k words. Of course, there was a three-year gap in the middle of Ascent, and I had a lot of down time between Ascent chapters, but even so … end of an era.

Through this project, I learned how to write novel-length stories and I learned how to write better, period. I know that through the course of the stories, the style changes and I hope my writing improves. I think at this point it would be a fool's errand to try and go back to fix it so that everything feels like it was written by the same person at the same point in her life, so I'll leave it. It's not atrocious or anything, mostly just different.

Since starting Ascent, I've been working on original stories as well. Through writing the original stories, I learned what went wrong with writing Ascent – I don't do serials very well. :) So the next novel-length fic you see from me will be written beginning to end all at once, and as a result, it'll be written much faster and with much more style consistency.

_**A few notes on the stories:**_

1) Abyss and a portion of Ascent were written between OotP and HBP. Being a fanfic author of a now-AU fic, I was able to pick and choose as I pleased whether to include post-OotP canon. So I inserted Fenrir and did a number of other nods and winks toward canon, but it would have been impossible to fit Abyss/Ascent completely into the direction Rowling went. Hence the prophecy but no Horcruxes.

2) In case you're wondering about how Severus possibly survived the Killing Curse, the guy that looked like him during the last battle wasn't actually him. Severus was attacked by Nagini during that battle, suffering a fate very similar to the end of DH. Wink and nod. Because Nagini is a unique magical hybrid, Severus and various Healers had trouble counteracting the effects of the venom, hence his need for a Medicus to help with the rehabilitation and physical therapy. I think they'll get along splendidly.

3) I fashioned Abyss and Ascent in such a way that Abyss was Hermione's abyss and Voldemort's ascent, and Ascent was Hermione's ascent and Voldemort's abyss.

**I would like to take this opportunity to thank profusely and apologize to all the people who stuck with me over all these years **(and those of you who found Abyss/Ascent after their completion, consider yourselves lucky).

The truth was that, in addition to not being a serial writer, I was kind of done with Ascent four years ago, so it was that much harder to get myself to write something whose time had passed. It wasn't that I didn't like Abyss/Ascent, just that I had mentally moved on before it was completed. However, I didn't want to leave everyone hanging. Maybe I just had to wait until I was in the right place to really do the ending some kind of justice. I guess that's up for you to decide. **And I would like to give another enthusiastic shout-out to my tireless, patient beta, Bean, who kept Ascent on my mind. **Any mistakes left in the story are mine.

In order to get into the mood for writing it, I listened to a playlist on repeat. A friend started me out by making me a mix CD for Abyss, and I built it up over the years. If I had to pick one song to represent each novel fic, it would be respectively "Ice" and "Hold On" by Sarah McLachlan.

If you're interested in the full Abyss/Ascent soundtrack, here we go, in story order.

Abyss: 1) "I Need to Know" Concept Jekyll & Hyde, 2) "Fear" Sarah McLachlan, 3) "This is the Moment" Original Broadway Cast Jekyll & Hyde, 4) "Red Right Hand" Nick Cave, 5) "People are Strange" Johnny Hollow, 6) "The Past is Another Land" Aida, 7) "Palestrina" Allegri Miserere, 8) "Ice" Sarah McLachlan, 9) "Going Under" Evanescence, 10) "Black" Sarah McLachlan, 11) "Lust" Tori Amos, 12) "Torn" Natalie Imbruglia, 13) "Casualty" Snake River Conspiracy, 14) "This One's Gonna Bruise" Beth Orton, 15) "Possum Kingdom" Toadies, 16) "Good 'N' Evil" OBC Jekyll & Hyde, 17) "One Step Closer" Linkin Park, 18) "Pretty When You Cry" VAST, 19) "Heart It All" Emilie Autumn, 20) "Worn Me Down" Rachael Yamagata, 21) "I'll Forget You" Scarlet Pimpernel: Encore, 22) "My Medea" Vienna Tang, 23) "Because of You" Kelly Clarkson, 24) "A New Life" OBC Jekyll & Hyde, 25) "Sleep Now in Your Fire" Rage Against the Machine, 26) "Memento Mori" Kamelot, 27) "Mordred's Lullaby" Heather Dale, 28) "Right Here in My Arms" HIM, 29) "Ruin" The Pierces, 30) "No Good Deed" Wicked, 31) "Learn to Be Lonely" Phantom of the Opera movie, 32) "All Over You" Live, 33) "Whisper" Evanescence, 34) "Addicted" Kelly Clarkson, 35) "White Flag" Dido, 36) "Good Behavior" Plumb, 37) "Survivor" Destiny's Child

Ascent: 1) "Blue Tattoo" Vanilla Ninja, 2) "Sober" Kelly Clarkson, 3) "Taking Over Me" Evanescence, 4) "Where's the Girl?" Scarlet Pimpernel: Encore, 5) "Stand My Ground" Within Temptation, 6) "Send Me an Angel" Real Life, 7) "If I Burn" Emilie Autumn, 8) "Control" Poe, 9) "Dead March" Suicide Commando, 10) "The Devil" Hoyt Axton, 11) "The Future" Leonard Cohen, 12) "It's a Dangerous Game" Concept Jekyll & Hyde, 13) "Do You Love Me?" Nick Cave, 14) "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" Sarah McLachlan, 15) "Hurt" Christina Aguilera, 16) "Please Don't Make Me Love You" Dracula concept, 17) "Cover Me" Thea Gilmore, 18) "Beautiful Disaster" Kelly Clarkson, 19) "Hold On" Sarah McLachlan, 20) "Wild Horses" Charlotte Martin, 21) "Lost in the Darkness" OBC Jekyll & Hyde, 22) "Do What You Have to Do" Sarah McLachlan, 23) "I Am Stretched on Your Grave" Kate Rusby, 24) "The Haunting (Somewhere in Time)" Kamelot

So there you go. It's been a pleasure, struggles and sadness and all. I have another, likely less dismal Voldemort/Hermione novel-length fic bouncing around in my head, but I probably won't get to it this year.


End file.
